


Fealty

by dreadwulf



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-24
Updated: 2013-06-16
Packaged: 2017-12-03 13:06:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 36,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/698574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreadwulf/pseuds/dreadwulf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fenris and Sebastian Vael have grown close during their time in Kirkwall, and Sebastian fears he may be falling for the elven warrior. But will Fenris be able to return those feelings, and will both of them survive the trials to come?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Facade

**Author's Note:**

> This began as a loosely-linked series of drabbles on my tumblr, and slowly developed an actual plot. I wanted to write a romance between Sebastian and Fenris taking into account their own histories and the status difference between them, and without jumping into the sexual content, at least not for a long while.

The Prince was staring at him again.

There had been other times, other days, when he had caught him looking. He had been so furtive about it, quickly averting his eyes without a single break in his expression, that the elf had tried to tell himself he had been imagining things.

But this time Fenris had counted three minutes since the archer had last looked away. Uneasy, he fidgeted, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, his face burning under that gaze. This he was not imagining. 

Sebastian's disquieting behavior was making it difficult to concentrate on business. As usual they were surrounded by strangers with weapons, and as usual Hawke was doing all the talking. He was moving rapidly away from "friendly negotiation" and heading in the direction of "open threats", which meant Fenris should be preparing for action. But he simply couldn't follow the thread of the conversation. These things were always essentially the same, anyway. His present distraction was something new.

Not that he wasn't used to being stared at by now - nearly everywhere he went there would be someone openly gaping at him. A living body embedded with lyrium tended to attract a lot of attention. Sometimes there was pointing and whispering, sometimes jaws dropped, and at times people displayed open disgust. There were accusing stares, blaming ones. As if he ever would do such a thing to himself!   He had never yet found a way to cope with these reactions. It was easier to ignore people in general and hate them when he couldn't.

Sebastian had been one of the few who had never stared at him like an object on display. Usually it took new acquaintances some time to recover from the shock of his appearance. The bright white hair, the veins of lyrium that had been gouged into his skin, all over his body. Even Hawke had gone bug-eyed when Fenris introduced himself, and the big man was otherwise unflappable. 

Sebastian had reacted... differently. He had given him the same serene smile he gave everyone else, and he had looked him in the eye without once gawking at his horrifically intricate scars. He never pried or gawked - if he had ever satisfied his curiosity, he had been discreet about it. Fenris had been suspicious of him at first, this being so unlike any other reaction he had ever gotten. But soon he found interacting with the archer a relief, at least in comparison to almost everyone Fenris had ever met. He was a thoughtful man, a compassionate one. Or so he had thought.

That must be why this change so troubled him. It meant his considerate treatment was only another facade. The Prince was unfailingly polite, after all. Courtly, even. Perhaps he had restrained his curiousity for only so long and would no longer. Perhaps disgust had won out after all.

Immersed in his dark thoughts, Fenris drew his sword before the moment had precisely called for it. _Enough of all this prattling, let us be done with politeness and courtesy. We will fight, we all know we will fight; let's get on with it._

Several of their opponents were similarly inspired to draw weapons by this action and immediately the moment had tipped over into battle. Hawke somehow found the time in the ensuing chaos to glare at Fenris, and the elf knew he was in for a lecture about tact and strategy when the fight was over. The thought of which made him even more cross. 

He hacked through his opponents and the feeling of eyes locked onto him only made him angrier. _Even now, in a battle? Does he enjoy watching my skin burn?_ His blood boiled with indignation at this small but significant betrayal. Dimly he was reminded of the many demonstrations of his abilities that he had given in Tevinter, back when he had been a plaything to powerful men. He had thought Sebastian better than that.

Once he had cleared his immediate opponents he approached the Prince, grabbing him by the shoulder and slamming him into the wall. His blue eyes were wide and startled now, and he had an unfamiliar expression on his face. Fear, perhaps?

"Have you seen enough?" he snarled at him. "Would you like me to assume a particular pose for you, so you can get a better look?"

"Fenris, what--?"

He narrowed his eyes angrily.

"Stop. Staring. At me."  

"Oh." That was all he said. Fenris let go of him and whirled to disembowel two more attackers on his way back into the fray. 

After that, throughout the skirmish and all the way back to Kirkwall, Sebastian barely looked at him at all. 

It wasn't any better.

* * *

 

_Dear Maker, father, creator, I've given you my life and right now I want just one thing in return._

_Please, I'm begging you, give me the bloody self-control you never saw fit to grant me at birth._

_I've been good. I've used my better judgement, and I've given up my vices. (My many, many vices. As you know.)_

_I've done my duty without question. I've been as patient as I can be. You know I have._

_I know you only granted me what I asked for - someone I could believe in, to learn strength and courage by their example. Someone to make the loneliness bearable. I'm grateful. Believe me, I'm grateful._

_But it's getting harder and harder to stop looking at him, Maker. Sometimes I think I'm going mad._

_Why did you have to make him so gorgeous?_


	2. Music

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is set some time after the first, once Fenris and Sebastian have spent some more time together. 
> 
> (Like I said, loosely-connected drabbles. Uh, it'll tie together more closely eventually...)

Sebastian caught himself humming one of the songs that morning. Starkhaven songs, sprightly and gently chiding. The ballads of a lovelorn boy-prince.

Oho, it had been awhile. The charming scoundrel of the songs was a distant stranger now, though he remembered him well. The scion of the first family, who would spy a pretty lass on the street and fill her home with flowers the next day. Who would disappear with a fetching footman one night and reappear a week later with a wandering troubador. A cheerful cad who left all his bedmates smiling.

He was no mere skirt-chaser: these were love affairs, all. His heart was a stalwart, ambitious muscle that fluttered for every handsome face. Young Sebastian had been a careless (foolish) lad who could fall wildly in love in a day. Or a night. And at least twice a week. 

That was ages ago, across the Free Marches, in another life. He had given up debauchery as a Brother of the Faith, and for the most part he hadn't missed it. It was, after all, only a distraction from soul sickness, not a cure for it. And the love affairs, well... he was glad to have sown his oats when he was young and his wounds healed more quickly. He was a grown man now, and he wouldn't just hand his heart over to the next person through the door. 

No, he would watch hundreds of people walk through the doors of the great cathedral before one of them would wrap his fingers around his heart and claim it before hapless Brother Vael quite knew what was happening.

He only knew it for certain when the striking man agreed to make a confession, not in a private vestibule but out in the air, as they had walked on the Wounded Coast the evening prior. 

* * *

 

 _"My name is Sebastian," he had insisted. "You don't need to call me Prince._ "

_Fenris only smiled, and the chantry brother realized he didn't truly mind it. The address seemed to amuse the elf, and things that amused the elf were appealing by nature._

_"I wish to confess, Prince. You said you would weigh my sins."_

_Something in his tone was careful and serious, and Sebastian stopped to give him full attention._

_"Of course, my friend. And I will never divulge what you tell me. We don't need to be in the Chantry, either: the beauty of nature is as good a temple as anything a man has built."_

_"It is a small thing._ _I -" he fidgeted slightly - "I have not been entirely honest with you."_

_"I'm sure it is forgivable," Sebastian had told him, as reassuringly as he could._

_"That is for you to decide." Fenris gazed impassively at the horizon, perhaps steeling himself. "You asked me how I came to be in the Chantry that morning, when we had met and spoke at length of the Chant of Light. I might have lead you to believe I was seeking something more... spiritually intended. In truth much of your religion is maddening to me, it makes little sense after the life I have lead. I came not to hear the words of Andraste, but to... only to listen to the music."_

_The elf paused, looking at him apprehensively. "At the time I did not want to be impolite, but I've let you go on thinking wrongly for too long. I am no religious seeker. I hope you are not too disappointed."_

_Quite the contrary. Happiness, as bright and bubbly as champaigne, came over Sebastian in a rush._

_He had smiled broadly at the elf as he gave his reply. "I enjoy music very much. Why did you think it would disappoint me? Music is a gift from the Maker as well, as important as the words of the Chant if not more."_

_In fact music was the one great passion Sebastian had never relinquished, a lifelong affair that was no small part of his pleasure in the Chantry. Musical talent had always run in his family, and it gave him great pleasure to join his voice to others in song._

_The warrior snorted ruefully. "I know nothing of gifts from the Maker. I only know that I heard something stirring from the morning service, and I wished to listen more closely."_

_Had he known what such words would do to him? If he had been pleased before, Sebastian was now practically giddy. Fenris liked to listen to the chant. The chant that Sebastian sang regularly at morning services._ **_He liked his singing._** _This was a revelation._

_"In Tevinter," the elf began hesitantly, and Sebastian was quickly reminded that this had nothing to do with him, of course it didn't. "In Tevinter there were not many pleasures I could freely enjoy. Many beautiful things I was not permitted to touch, food I could not taste. Were I to look upon one of the many paintings and artwork that surrounded me, I could be cuffed for laziness."_

_"But nothing could stop you listening," Sebastian said._

_"Correct." Fenris smiled a little. "I found I enjoyed the music in the Chantry, the bells ringing, Chanters on the street corners. It would make the world melt away. Color it differently. To an extent, it would allow me to imagine other possibilities."_

_"The Chant has so many exquisite passages. I believe it the most beautiful music in all the world."_

_"It is so. Most lovely." The elf gave him a sidelong glance, and then added, "you sing it beautifully."_

_Sebastian was **never going to stop smiling**._

_"The imperial chant is a near cousin; not the same, but related. The differences are... intriguing."_

_Brother Vael's soaring mood darkened a little to think on the Imperium, and its crimes against the man standing before him. "The Black Divine. I would expect it to be a pale imitation, a corruption, of the true chant."_

_Fenris disagreed. "It is beautiful also. In a different way."_

_"I have never heard it." An amazing, incredible thought descended on the archer like a bolt from the blue, and his face lit up with excitement. "Fenris! Could you sing it for me? You must know every word!"_

_He hadn't even THOUGHT of this before. Fenris singing. The elf's low, musical speaking voice resonated in the bones as it was; that voice singing would be an unimaginable bliss. The very idea sent a shiver through him._

_But the man scowled at the suggestion even as he blushed adorably. It would not happen, Sebastian saw, but he would be permitted to dangle the idea and hope, and this in itself would be a pleasure._

_"I have enjoyed our talks," Fenris continued, ignoring the request. "Even though I do not share your faith. I would continue them, if you are willing. But I did not want any deception to stand between us."_

_"I appreciate your honesty. Perhaps I can show you some sense in the words of the Chant, beyond the beauty of the music. And you could convince me there is beauty in the Imperial Chant as well, perhaps?"_

_And they had spoken of other things, and a steady pleasure had burned in the chanter's chest the entire time._

* * *

And now here he was, a serious man daydreaming like a schoolboy, singing the songs of his youth under his breath. Balladry and sentiment he had thought long outgrown. Love songs.

Oh, he was in so much trouble.


	3. Water

Fenris had never come to the Wounded Coast without his sword before.

Sebastian had invited him to swim out along the coast. He had invited Fenris many times by now, but this was the first time he had agreed to come along. On so fine a day it seemed ungrateful to say no, and the way the Prince beamed with excitement was reward enough.

He did not, in fact, actually swim. The elf preferred to sit in the shallows and let the waves move around him pleasantly. The cool water soothed his bare skin and plastered his shirt and leggings to his body. He did not care to struggle out to sea; this sensation relaxed him as few things did, and he was not about to exert himself at the moment. Here he could close his eyes and think of nothing at all. Or he could watch his companion.

The Prince swam. He rode out farther and farther over the waves before swimming back to shore, to distances that would be worrying if he were not so confident a swimmer. His archer's arms were built for this exercise, as powerful in the water as they were nimble with his bow. His broad shoulders turned smoothly in the water and the sun glinted off his back, where at last you could see the musculature that was normally hidden under his conservative clothing.

He was very water-like himself, the Prince. He ebbed and flowed. He adapted to almost any surrounding and seemed equally at ease in all of them, whether it was a drawing room, a cathedral, or a run-down pub. He could be as placid as a calm sea. But at the right provocation, a storm could brew. He would swell with a billowing anger and grow large and blustery. 

Even now he swam against the tide, using its pull to test his strength. He was not so peaceful as he appeared, not always. In hidden depths there lurked resentment, bitterness, sorrow. If submerging himself in the Chantry was meant to bury this frustration, it had not worked.

These were the sort of emotions Fenris could more easily understand.

Perhaps that was why the Prince gave him his time. Surely the city was full of people whose company he could enjoy. But vengance, the kind that is bloody and lifelong, was an uncommon trait that they shared. It explained why someone like Sebastian would spend a beautiful afternoon with only him for companionship. He seemed to be calmer when it was only the two of them. Maybe his example was a caution to him. After all Fenris had little else but revenge to live for, when the Prince had so much more. He wouldn't mind that. If it soothed the man's soul to witness someone more twisted by fate than himself, Fenris would not begrudge him that.

At least, he suddenly realizes, on a day like this, he did have a few more things to live for than revenge. He had the warm sun on his skin, and the cool water. He had no enemies to fight. He had hours at leisure with the Prince of Starkhaven calling to him from beyond the waves, and he could watch him float effortlessly, gracefully along the cresting sea wearing a smile like a boy at play. 

Memories like this he stored away for winter, the way another man might store food.

The Prince's unexpected friendship did more to soothe his own troubled soul than he could possibly explain. He could only let its grace flow around him like water and hope when the tide drew away again it would take him out with it.


	4. Longing

"You have a shadow," Elthina observed.

The two of them stood reading the notices on the Chanter's Board. Across the courtyard, seemingly absorbed in conversation with city guards, was a familiar elf with a very large sword.

Sebastian did not have to look to know that he was there.

"A friendly shadow, Grand Cleric."

"He does not look very friendly. Does he always look like that?"

Sebastian ignored her gentle gibe. "He means to protect me. There's some concern that my rival in Starkhaven knows about my recent activities. Some of his supporters would prefer it if I disappear," he confessed reluctantly. He knew the Grand Cleric did not approve of his overtures towards retaking his father's throne. 

Elthina sniffed. "You might have informed me of this. While you are living on Chantry grounds..."

"They would not dare to breach the Chantry, your grace." He glanced up quickly at Fenris in the distance. "My friend there is more concerned about what happens when I leave the grounds. He would prefer it if I stayed in cloister for the time being."

"And since you never take anyone's advice..."

"I'm not going to hide from danger! Why does everyone assume I'm a babe in the woods?" he asked crossly.

The Grand Cleric had grown fond of Sebastian in the years since he had come to Kirkwall. He had a good heart and a strong will, although plagued with indecision of late. His family's rejection of him had caused a great deal more pain than he would admit. To be suddenly burdened with their legacy had spiraled him into doubt and confusion.

She knew him well enough to recognize his turmoil, far better than he thought she did. She also knew, instinctively, that this shadow of his was important to him, and therefore a possible catalyst for his future.

She studied the elf directly, thoughtfully. "One of your mercenary friends, correct? Does he know the Chant?"

"He is... ambivalent. He has had a hard life."

"Often those are the people who need the Chantry most."

He agreed. "He comes to services sometimes. More for my sake, I think. But it seems to bring him some measure of peace."

Elthina lowered her voice slightly. "Are you in love with him?"

Sebastian jerked his head around at that, startled.

"Peace, brother Vael. I am not accusing you of anything."

He turned back to the Chanter's board and stared at it unseeing, thinking on his answer. "My vows are in no danger," he said quietly. He was suddenly very aware of Fenris's presence and worried irrationally whether they were in earshot.

"That wasn't the question."

Sebastian didn't answer further. 

Fenris had finally acknowledged the Grand Cleric's insistent gaze, nodding politely. Rather than approach their private conversation, the elf retreated entirely, in the direction of Lowtown.

She watched him go. "I have observed you together. You are positively beaming whenever you see him. I may be an old woman and a sister besides, but I am not blind."

He sighed. "I don't know what to say. I enjoy his company, it's true. But my romancing days are over, Elthina. I am devoted to the Maker."

"We can't always help what the heart wants, Sebastian. Or so I'm told..."

"I have no intention of acting on anything, you must believe me. I am steadfast in my vows. Any... idle thoughts I may have, they are thoughts only." 

"And what does he think?"

"He doesn't know."

Elthina looked at him skeptically. "If a chaste sister of the Chantry can tell, I think he is probably aware." 

The prince dropped his head. "No, he would be very surprised to hear it, I think. He does not think much of himself. Heart-breakingly so. He will not even address me by name. No, he doesn't know."

"What will you do?"

"Nothing."

"You have not fully committed one way or another, therefore you have no vows to break. If you return to Starkhaven as you have planned--"

"If I return to Starkhaven as a Prince I will need to marry a human woman and produce an heir. I would _not_ make my friend an elven mistress even if he were willing to do it. Which he wouldn't be." He hung his head even lower. "If I stay within the Chantry I will keep my vows. Either way..."

"There is a third option."

"No, there isn't. My obligation is to fulfill my family's wishes as a priest, or to take their place at the seat of Starkhaven. I will not abandon my responsibilities to pursue worldly desires. If I did then the whole of my adult life has been pointless and I have learned nothing."

"Besides," he added ruefully, "Fenris loves another. You've met him. Garrett Hawke, of the noble Amell family. A fine man. So he will find happiness without me. I will be his friend, nothing more."

"Dear boy, I have heard that sort of statement before. Do you want to know how this ends?" 

Suddenly there is steel in his voice. "Do not ask me to give him up."

"Sebastian."

"I asked the Maker for help. I _struggle_ , Elthina. I wander in darkness, not knowing what He wants of me. Unworthy of his blessing. I asked for something to light my way, and he sent me Fenris. Since we met, I.. I am learning what sort of man I am. When we speak everything seems clear and simple, and my life makes sense. Don't ask me to give him up." 

"My son--"

" _Please_."

She smiled sadly. "I only want for you not to tear yourself to pieces with indecision and doubt. Sooner or later you will have to choose a course."

"I will," he said firmly. "When the time is right. When I know what the Maker wants for me."

She let it go there. She had no certainty to give him, except that heartbreak would be in his future no matter which way he decided to go.


	5. Arrows

For much of his life, Fenris's experiences had been limited entirely to violence and warfare.

His earliest memories, after Danarius had wiped away his early life, were of training. Endless training without break. Drills of strength and speed and endurance, failure of which would be punished brutally. Such skills rapidly became unconscious, automatic, which made it easier to evaluate his enemy and develop a strategy. Once his training was complete, he took his place protecting Danarius as his (permanent, unpaid) bodyguard. He was often required to perform demonstrations of skill in combat for the entertainment of onlookers. A few times he had been brought to combat Qunari in Imperial battles at Danarius's side. Fighting had consumed most of his attention for most of his life.

Even now that he was a free man, this much had not changed. He still found himself fighting, both to keep his freedom from the slavers who pursued him as well as to earn coin. He knew how to do little else, certainly nothing that would keep him fed. He was a warrior, whether he wanted to be or not. Whatever else he might once have been had been taken from him, and he had found nothing yet to replace it with.

If he were honest with himself, he still enjoyed it. Though Fenris maintained a calm expression as he fought, his dizzying sweeps across the battlefield were a release for the tremendous anger that boiled inside him. This had not always been so. As a bodyguard he had felt nothing in battle. Satisfaction, perhaps. Mild contempt. But not this rage that erupted from him, more and more, as he lay waste to his opponents. It relieved, sometimes, a burden he was hardly aware of carrying until it grew lighter in the aftermath of a battle.

So the first details he tended to notice about a person involved their skills in combat, and he would imagine how it would be to face them in battle. How would they hold themselves? How would they fight? Would they be defensive, or aggressive? He found he defined most people in this way: as bystanders, runners,  brave fools, or soldiers. Hawke's company was no different. Aveline was a stone wall, relentlessly blocking your path. Isabela was a duststorm, always distracting you from the killing blow. Merrill was absolutely defenseless up close, but turn your back on her and she could crush you into dust. 

They were unprofessional and untrained, many of them. Instinctual. Over-emotional, in some cases, prone to fits of temper and poor judgement. They did not take warfare seriously, thought it a grand adventure. It would probably remain so until they took a sword in the gut someday. He would surely come to the same fate one day, but at least he knew there would be nothing glorious about it. 

The Prince had joined the group much later than Fenris had, when he had already been traveling with Hawke for several years. He had a different style from the others. Trained, yes, and disciplined. But he did not adventure for fun or frivolity. Or even for money, as he seemed to have plenty of it. He had very specific goals. Restore his family's honor. Contain the threat of apostates. Serve Andraste's name by helping people in trouble.

This last in particular seemed a little too good to be true. Such piety could hardly be real. It had to be an act. Initially he had thought he would catch out the Prince in an act of selfishness or cruelty if he waited long enough. Generally people who thought themselves righteous would turn out to be secretly depraved, if one waited long enough. 

Fenris was still waiting.

The Prince’s calm in battle was no veneer. No matter the situation he stood still and placid at the center of the storm, not even running for cover. An archer could do little in close quarters, but few combatants ever got anywhere near him. There were none of Varric’s wild volleys for the Prince. No, his way was precision. A target of one inch was enough for him to strike, and no armor covered every inch. Through the eye of the helmet, the shoulder joint in the armor, the neck, the knee. He could take down the strongest of men at a hundred paces.

There was a perfectionist behind the bow, Fenris quickly sensed. If the Prince competed with anyone it was himself, for a better and faster shot. He hated to miss. If a moving target got away from one of his shots, the Prince would let fly an impossibly rapid series of arrows, one after another, until the target was brought down. If necessary he would even give chase.

Perhaps there was some vanity to that, as well. After all, he could brag as much as Varric, when he got an in especially impressive shot. Generally such self-regard would have bothered him, but Fenris could forgive vanity when true skill was involved. He had much to be proud of. He looked the very picture of the handsome prince from one of the simple books Fenris was learning to read. Gleaming white armor, clear blue eyes, and a brilliant smile. He would have thought such details nonsense if he had not met a real-life example.

He hadn’t the athletic grace which Fenris had been trained for, but there was grace there. He did not move about the field, but he was _fast._ His hands were fast and his piercing eyes were faster – they saw everything, every flicker of movement, and predicted its goal with nearly supernatural accuracy. 

Fenris often wouldn’t even see the arrows that brought down the enemies around him. They would crumple to the ground soundlessly, and the archer would already be facing a new target by the time he looked to him.

Of course he had overreacted, when the Prince had first brought down marauders at his heels. One of the first times they had fought together, he had noted a number of his foes dropping without his interference. 

Always his first response was insult. Did the archer think him unable to protect himself? “I do not need your help, Prince Vael. Worry for yourself,” he cautioned him. “Your arrows will not do much if they are pointed away from the enemy at your back.”

“Then you should watch it,” the Prince said placidly. “As I shall watch yours.”

“I am no amateur. I do not need anyone watching my back.”

“’Tis true. You don’t." He smiled pleasantly, not taking offense at Fenris's touchy reaction. "But it is nice, isn’t it? To know you have companions to assist you? If you ever do need back-up, I will be there.”

Fenris grumbled at this, but he did not bring it up again. And his foes continued to crumple, depriving him of the pleasure of striking them down even as it very likely prevented him from injury.

He had decided for a time not to notice Sebastian's volleys, and therefore did not notice when the Prince became surrounded by foes during a skirmish. He had only whirled around to look for more enemies to cut down, and noticed a crowd of them converging on a single target. Sebastian. The archer with no room to restring his bow, trying hard to earn space with his sorry little knife against six men with swords.

At the sight he bounded over and launched himself at the threatening crowd with a tremendous cry. His heart pounding, Fenris carved his way through the group until he could see the Prince intact and resetting himself to shoot. He pushed them back the best he could and then the arrows flew all around him and all their foes were dead.

He tried his best not to jump out of his skin when the Prince clapped him on the shoulder. "Thank you, my friend. I would surely have perished without your aid."

"Call for help next time," he managed to say.

Sebastian left his hand on the elf's shoulder a long moment before moving away. Their association was friendly by that time; they had begun to walk together and talk over the strange courses that their lives had taken.

Perhaps he was a friend. Perhaps he had earned that, now.

It pleased him that he had come to the Prince's aid. The anxiety that had come over Fenris in that moment, he chose not to examine too closely.

But adjustments were made. Fenris did not stray far from the Prince in battle. He learned to trust the archer's aim, that even when he could hear the  _zing_ of an arrow flying just past his ear he should not flinch, for Sebastian would never hit him. He drew most foes to himself with loud bravado and flashing lyrium brands, and unnoticed the Prince would bring them down all around him. He raced all up and down and around the Prince's position and brought down any threat that approached. The two of them could devastate the ranks of an army entirely on their own.

The flight of arrows over the field of battle would always be a comfort to him now, that even if he should fall he would not perish alone. At least one person would notice, and this was enough. For his part, he would let no blade approach the Prince and allow no mage to target him. His aimless rage was refocusing and becoming something else - pride? vigilance? what? There was so much he still did not understand. Only fighting was simple. Comprehensible. Only the adrenaline-fired focus of danger and the perilous dance of combat. This was where he belonged, turning around and around the archer in a rush of blades and lyrium, battering through his enemies like a hurricane around Sebastian at his still center.


	6. Bullseye

_thunk thunk thunk_

The third shot went wide. Sebastian reset himself to retry the sequence again. 

The first arrow he held for a long moment as he surveyed the five targets across from him. Two bullseyes and an arrow in the red; he could do better.

_thunk thunk thunk thud_

Worse still: three bullseyes and another in the blue. Rushing. He cautioned himself to slow down (but not too much, not too much).

_thunk thunk thunk thunk thunk_

Better. He should be able to do that every time. The action from releasing one arrow to setting the next should be smoother, faster, without losing accuracy.

Sebastian set down his bow and walked to the targets to reclaim his arrows. The sun was setting outside the walls, leaving only a violet haze in the western sky. Very soon it would be too dark for practice. The inner courtyards did not offer much more than moonlight after this.

He fisted the wooden shaft of each arrow and pulled sharply to take them out without breaking, in one go. The soft straw of the target did not dull the metal points of the arrows too much, but he used an entirely different set for excursions, anyway. This set was his grandfathers, or at least some of them were. There were not many left; over the years they had broken and splintered, and he would reluctantly discard them, one at a time.

He moved to the second target and grasped the next arrow. They would be gathering at the Hanged Man now; Hawke's companions. Drinking and playing at cards, and flirting and telling stories.

Fenris had invited him to come along. He declined.

He knew very well he was unwanted. And he did not want the others to hold it against the elf for bringing him.

He deposited the retrieved arrows in the quiver at his back, trying to maintain his concentration on training. One was never finished training, even once they had taken their practice into the field. 

One was never finished training until they were perfect.

Sebastian slipped the last arrow over his shoulder and headed back to the line. The firelight brightened around him as the Chantry sisters lit the torches for the night, all around the edges of his vision.

The sport of perfection, archery. Where perfection is measured out in points on a target range, and in lives on a battlefield. Anything less than perfection in tournament would lose. Anything less than perfection on a battlefield was useless, utterly useless. Miss by inches against an armoured enemy, and your arrow will bounce harmlessly off a thick metal plate. Or miss completely.

Sebastian hefted the ornate Starkhaven bow that he had left hanging at the podium. His grandfather's bow, the one Hawke had retrieved. It still did not respond entirely to his touch. It required the touch of a master, and he was not there yet.

Sebastian sighed and turned around to toe the line. 

He notched and pulled the arrow back, feeling the tension in the line settle into stillness. This bow fought him; the kick of it sent his arrows wild. But he was determined to master it. Perfection may always elude him, but that would not prevent him from trying for it. 

He had no excuse not to be perfect. He'd had every advantage. And he'd still turned out to be a useless git, hadn't he? Shame of the family and all that. Run out of Starkhaven so as not to embarass them further.

 _Thunk_.

He would shoot one target at a time, now, until he could hit the bullseye every time without fail. Then he would return to multiple targets. If there was light enough.

 _Thunk_.

It was all coming back, that sense of _not measuring up._ He had temporarily escaped it in the Chantry, until their ghosts came to live with him. As a priest in training, for the first time in his life he felt truly free of the burden of expectation that he had so chafed under. His demanding father, his distant mother, his smug elder brothers. 

They were all dead now. Now they looked over his shoulder at every turn. Now whenever he pulled back his arrow he could just hear his father saying: "How many times have I told you to  _stand up straight,_ youngster? Do you never listen?"

 _Thud_. 

Just off to the red. 

Never had been good enough for that man. Never would be now. The last conversation they had together had been a long-in-coming shouting match, years ago. He had always meant to return in glory, as an exalted brother of the Chantry. Show off his newfound peace and self-possession. Instead his father had died remembering him as a reckless hedonist, a selfish weakling unworthy of the Vael name.

 _Thunk_.

Perfect. Dead-on center.

Anger usually helped. Oddly enough.

Sebastian restrung and held to this feeling, channeled it into practice. Resentment was the last vice he had let go of as an initiate, and the first to come back when Elethina had forbidden him to take his vows. 

 _Thunk_.

Self-pity, though, that was gone forever. Fenris had taken care of that. From the moment he met him. How could anyone lament their lot in life, after meeting someone else who had suffered so much more, and bourne it so much better?

Fenris had reminded him of how truly weak and soft he was. If Sebastian had been thrown into his shoes he was absolutely certain he would never have survived it. He would have shattered, either died or gone mad. In comparison, the pressures he had felt in Starkhaven were paltry and superficial, and still they had defeated him.

 _Thunk_.

And despite his obvious inadequacies the elf looked to him for advice, and with admiration. 

If he had seen the Vael family before they had perished, he would have been far less impressed. His handsome, talented brothers. His ferociously intelligent father, his gentle mother. 

Their demands of him were not unreasonable, in retrospect. All he had to do was be worthy of the name. To be better than he was.

And how had he handled that? 

By refusing to play along at all. By giving up. By looking for affection anywhere else he could find it, and distraction too. By maliciously fulfilling the opposite of all their hopes for him, and pretending to enjoy it, and resenting the hell out of all of them for it.

 _Thunk_.

The worst thing was that when he was younger he had fantasized about suddenly being next in line to the throne. Maybe by incompetence, maybe by public demand, maybe his elder brothers would fall in love with innappropriate commoners and run off, or maybe, maybe both of them would tragically be killed. Yes, he even fantasized about that. And about how great a ruler he would be in their stead, and how sorry everyone would be for misjudging him. 

One couldn't blame themselves too much for teenaged fantasies. The Maker would not have carried out such grim wish-fullfillment just to spite him. Would He?

Now he was the only one left. Irony of ironies.

 _Thunk_.

Starkhaven hardly clamoured for him to return, did they? 

There had always been a Vael at the helm of Starkhaven. To let the name die would be to spit on the entire line. But to shame the line, in failure, would be worse.

He would have to be stronger, to live up to their name. Much stronger. More like Fenris. His friend who had come from nothing, and become so much more. But he didn't have that kind of unbreakable mettle to him, no. He would have to be something else.

He would have to be perfect.

 _Thunk_.


	7. Worth

Something had happened between Hawke and Fenris. And it wasn't good.

That was about as much as Sebastian could glean. All he really knew was that Fenris had dropped out of sight entirely.

Not only did he no longer accompany Hawke on his missions around the city, he no longer showed up at the Hanged Man. According to Varric, he had not joined him at cards for a few weeks, and neither had he stopped in for a drink. From his own observations, he knew Fenris had not appeared anywhere near the region of the Chantry, which was strange considering he lived only around the corner from there. 

Clearly it had something to do with Hawke; the big man was acting strangely. He slipped into foul moods and snapped at people, and then tried to make up for it by acting boisterously, to a degree that was almost manic.

Unfortunately Sebastian had not managed to cultivate a relationship with anyone in Hawke's merry band aside from Fenris, and so noone seemed particularly interested in filling him in on what they all seemed to know. 

He was not about to ask Hawke. Even though he still approached Sebastian for his assistance as an archer from time to time, and for news from Starkhaven, he had the distinct impression that Hawke didn't much like him.

Varric had only scowled at him when he asked, an unusual expression for the normally-cheerful dwarf. "The Elf's in the doghouse," was all he would say. "As well he should be, what he did. Ask one of them yourself, if you want to know."

"It won't be appearing in one of your future novels?" Sebastian tried to joke.

"Not if I want Broody to maintain any sympathy," he said, shaking his head.

When he had not seen Fenris for weeks, the worry became too much for him. 

The worry, and the loneliness too. It had been too long since he had heard the elf's voice, and since he had earned one of his rare smiles. 

From the Chanter's board, Sebastian could actually see a section of the manor in which Fenris lived. It peeked up through the skyline, a shadow on the bright and cheery Hightown morning. Clearly it had once been one of the grandest homes in Kirkwall, but it had been many years since its original owner had left the city and allowed the building to fall into disrepair.

Sebastian hated to imagine his friend living there. Always when he met Fenris at the doorstep the crumbling facade of the place made him wince. 

He had never been invited inside.

He had wondered why not, but decided not to ask. 

That morning, looking at the manor looming over him in the distance, he found himself walking closer and closer to it, up the stairs and around the corner, as if drawn there by some infernal power. He was wondering if his friend might be at a window, somewhere he could see. Just so he could have some sign that all was well.

He arrived at the neighborhood, and then the street, looking carefully at every window, and then he was standing in front of the manor. And then, all right, he may as well knock on the door.

He knocked quietly at first, and then pounded. "Fenris! It's me. Uh, this is Sebastian Vael. Could I have a word?"

But of course there was no answer. The place was entirely silent. 

Next thing he knew, he was pushing the door open, and trying to make out shapes in the darkness of the entryway. "Fenris!" he called in, but there came no answer.

The door creaked so loudly as it opened that he thought for certain it would bring the elf swordsman running to defend the place. But there were no sounds inside, even when he creaked the door a few more times for good measure. 

Sebastian was definitely worried now.

He touched the bannister along the stairs and quickly pulled his hand away, a layer of dust and possibly mold coming away with it. Though the manor was quiet, a scurrying sound could be heard from within the walls. Rats. The place was probably full of them.

_Fenris... **lives** here? _

He had heard the place was a wreck, but hearing it was less appalling than going inside. The very air was stale and sour and made him want to cough. It shocked and angered him. His friend deserved so much better than this.

_He shouldn't live here. In his master's house? We should have it knocked down and dance in the ashes. We should build him a real manor, something sparkling and new. Fenris deserves a comfortable home. Everyone does, but... especially him._

Sebastian thought, as he carefully climbed the rickety stairway, of how he could potentially make such a thing happen without revealing his involvement. He certainly had the money. He rarely spent it. The elf would be too proud to accept it directly, but if he could do this much for him it would be a better use for the Vael fortune than anything else he could think of. 

There was no sign of the elf in the grand hall, where evidence of his recent presence littered the room. His armor lay discarded on the floor, along with a multitude of empty wine bottles. The ashes in the fireplace were cold, and anyway there was no firewood anywhere. 

The elf would not have left without his armor. Sebastian hadn't even been sure he would take it off to sleep, considering he seemed always prepared for an attack of some sort.

He had to be somewhere in this building.

Sebastian walked through the corridors, frowning. It was cold in here. Cold and dark. Was it some sort of penance, living here? Sebastian had deprived himself of a lot of things, as penance for his own sins. Still he could not imagine a sin terrible enough for Fenris to live like this. Not one that he would have committed on his own, anyway.

He found him in an empty room, in a far corner of the mansion. Lying on the floor, curled up on himself, under a thin blanket. As he approached the strong smell of wine assaulted his nostrils. Fenris was dead drunk, he realized. In the middle of the day.

Sebastian crouched over the elf and shook him gently, calling his name. He had never touched him before. Fenris hated to be touched. But Sebastian was worried enough to disregard that. "Fenris? Can you hear me?" He hauled his lanky form up and sat him up against the wall. "Wake up, my friend. Are you all right?"

Fenris stirred and rubbed his eyes irritatedly. "Who- Prince? What do you want?"

He did his absolute best to smile. "Making sure you're still among the living."

He kept his eyes squeezed shut, with a hand over them to block the light. "Despite my best efforts," he jested weakly.

He looked dreadfully ill. His face was pallored and dark rings circled his eyes, and at a guess Sebastian would say he had lost weight. 

"I'm taking you to the healer."

" _cur ego vigilo?_ _derelinquat me ad requiem,_ " Fenris muttered. For a moment he had slipped into his native tongue, a jarring reminder to the archer that they did not converse in his first language. Then, remembering himself, he switched smoothly back to the common tongue. "I am not sick. I am... inebriated."

Sebastian couldn't help but be amused that his friend pronounced words like "inebriated" with perfect inflection even while half-conscious. 

"It's a bit early for that, isn't it?" he said gently.

"At the time it was late." The elf rubbed his eyes a last time, and then squinted at his visitor. "If you would return later, I will be sober."

"Will you?"

He sighed.

"Have you done nothing but hide here and drink? How long has this been going on? What happened, Fenris?"

The elf cleared his throat and avoided his gaze. "You must know already."

"All that I know is that it's something to do with Hawke."

He blanched at the name, and started hunting around his blankets. 

"Did the two of you argue?" Sebastian watched him come up with a half-empty bottle and clutch it to his side. 

He waited patiently.

Fenris was quiet for a time, rolling the bottle between his hands, and then asked his own question. "Hawke is angry?"

"Hawke is... Hawke."

"Hmm." 

Sebastian sat down next to Fenris, who reflexively scooted away. 

Fenris typically remained as close to expressionless as possible. Sebastian guessed that this was a holdover from his life as a slave. The wrong reaction back then could probably have gotten him killed. This stoicism he had handled with gentle patience thus far, and it had gotten him glimpses of what the elf privately wrestled with. It had not prepared him for this. Today the anguish was plain on his face. In his eyes, especially. It induced something like panic in the archer, this change in him. What had happened to injure him so? The urge to do something rash was difficult to resist.

"What happened?" he repeated, carefully keeping his distance.

"We... I was upset... and he..." Fenris shook his head, staring at the bottle in his hand. "Something happened. Shouldn't have."

Sebastian guessed wildly. "You slept together."

The elf's green eyes flickered up to his, just for a second, and then looked past him. "It was a mistake. I confused wanting something with the rightness of it. The ability to -- I'm... broken. I'm broken, Prince. I should have known better." 

He squeezed his eyes shut and collapsed forward, his head in his hands. "I only wanted..." he started to say. But he couldn't finish.

Sebastian tried to comfort him, put an arm around him, but was quickly shoved away. Hard, driving him several feet back.

" _ **Don't**_."

A mistake. You don't touch the elf, and especially not now. He came back up quickly, trying to reassure. "I'm sorry, it's okay, I'm sorry..."

Fenris ignored his gestures of comfort, kept his head turned down into his lap and shook it back and forth. "I ran away. Like a frightened child. So this is what my life will be, I suppose. Running."

"Not always, my friend. Just until you're ready to stop." He hoped that this would be comforting and not just more empty words, which was what they felt like.

"How long do you suppose it takes?" he asked quietly.

Sebastian stopped himself from asking him to elaborate. How long to stop running? How long to remember what he needed to know? Or how long to forget? How long to heal? But Fenris wasn't asking him, exactly. He was just asking.

"I don't wish to talk about it anymore," he added firmly.

"It would help," Sebastian said, his Chantry training taking over. "It always helps to talk it over."

"Not this."

He hesitated, unsure how to proceed without upsetting him. "Did Hawke... do something to upset you?"

He shook his head, harder. "It doesn't matter."

"It does."

"Hawke will forget me. He is a Lord and the Champion besides. Someone else will warm his bed soon enough."

"I don't _care_ about Hawke," Sebastian suddenly exclaimed. " _You_ are hurting. That's what I care about."

"Then your concern is misplaced. What I might... _feel_ is of no consequence."

His stomach twisted with anguish. What really galled him was that Varric had acted as though Hawke was the only wronged party here, when Fenris was plainly suffering too. If he had walked away from Hawke, he had his own reasons. Did none of their so-called friends care about that?

"I don't think you know what you are worth," he declared, in what he thought of as his _official_ voice, which such pronouncements deserved. "Your feelings are important too."

Fenris looked at him cooly, now. He was a remarkably controlled drunk. His' speech slurred only slightly, and he enunciated more, but most of all he talked  _more_ , and  _faster_ , as though whatever filter he had in place to edit his speech had fallen away.

"I could tell you exactly what I am worth. It's quite a large amount, in fact. This lyrium in my skin is almost priceless, pure and in large quantities. It would cost rather a lot to get it out of me, of course. A good deal of coin was put into the ritual that made me, and nearly as much for my training. The reward on my head must be incredibly high, for all the slavers who have attempted to capture me despite the dozens of them I've already killed. At least a few of those were Danarius's own men, sent at his own expense. He has put a king's ransom into me, in other words... that is what I am worth. And I am exactly as that monster made me." 

Fenris held up his hands and glared at them as he spoke, making plain his hatred for his own design. 

"Whatever amount it is, he has undervalued you," Sebastian said, trying to follow the elf's own logic. "You are **priceless** , as any person is. Your value is so much more than money could buy."

"You think so?" Fenris dropped his hands, resting his head back against the wall. He smiled a terrible smile. "Money could buy any mercenary in Lowtown and all the whores in the Blooming Rose. What more have I to offer than that?" His smile disappeared, and he looked forlorn again and faraway. "They at least are... real people. Not weapons... tools... shaped like people."

All at once Sebastian was overwhelmed with the desperate longing to put his arms around the elf and comfort him. If only Fenris could see himself the way he saw him! He could only try to explain it to him, insufficiently.

"You're not a tool, Fenris, my friend, you are an incredible person. You have overcome every obstacle in the world to be here! You overcame your captors and escaped the Imperium -- I've never even met another who has done that! You live freely, and you _earned_ this life, unlike, well, someone like me who had everything given to him. You-- you are a fine warrior and a good friend, and... your strength, your courage, it inspires me." 

"Oh, I see. I am _inspirational_." Fenris said the word in the same spiteful tone in which he usually said the word _mage_. "For all the good that does me... I may be unable to live in this world but at least this agony _inspires_ you."

Sebastian's stomach dropped. "No, no- I didn't mean it like that!"

"No? You imagine my struggles a thing of the past, and this to be my... my _happy ending_." He laughed, bitterly. "It must be a disappointment to you to learn how soundly I am beaten. I didn't overcome _anyone_. It was a _fluke_ that I escaped. I have earned _nothing_. And this is hardly _living, i_ s it?"

"You don't understand--" 

"Go away, Sebastian. Leave me alone." 

"Fenris."

" **Go**."

Sebastian stayed put, at first. Stubbornly he thought his refusal to leave might prove something. His sincerity, maybe. Or his devotion. 

But Fenris refused to speak to him anymore. He uncorked the bottle and drank it down to the dregs. Eventually he rolled over and went back to sleep, or more likely pretended to, in a posture of abject misery. 

Finally Sebastian decided his presence was more harm than help, and he left.

It would be a long time before he saw Fenris again.


	8. Alarm

Fenris had been with Hawke when he heard the news.

It was perhaps masochistic of him to continue following Hawke, after what had happened between them. But time had passed since then, and if Hawke was willing to forgive him  enough to invite him along on his mercenary work, Fenris could not refuse him. 

Besides which, he needed the money.

He had sent a missive to this Varania, the elf in Tevinter who claimed to be his sister, and surprisingly enough she had written him back. She was a free elf, it seemed, just as Hadriana had claimed. She wished to meet with him and to do it here in Kirkwall. But she needed coin to travel, and that he had little of -- never needing much himself, he kept little around in the way of valuables. 

He had acquaintances who would have been happy to lend him the money. But he wished to be no more indebted to them than he already was. And the person most likely to offer had been away for some time. The Prince was now enacting his plans to retake Starkhaven in earnest, traveling all around the free marches to recruit supporters and gather resources. He would need all his coin for this, Fenris knew. The generous man would have offered it to him just the same, if he had discovered the need, despite his own circumstances. So Fenris kept his fundraising to himself, and avoided bothering the Prince when he was so busy with his own affairs.

Hawke, on the other hand, continued to earn money hand over fist from his many misadventures. And he had extended an olive branch for future excursions, if ever Fenris decided to rejoin their company.

He took some time to think it over. Hawke had moved up in the world yet again; his duel with the Arishok had made him a saviour of Kirkwall. They had even erected a statue of him in the harbor. The big man had taken this change in stride, acted as if he had always been the protector of the city and such accolades were only his due. As were the many suitors who now lined his doorstep. As predicted, Hawke had wasted no time replacing him in his bed. 

So Fenris joined them, and if he was burdened by the shame of what he had done, and not done, and if the handsome human's smiles and jests twisted a knife in his gut, perhaps it was only as he deserved.

That did not make it any easier to watch him flirting with this blasted blonde elf.

They had been hired to kill this assassin, but they had not killed or even captured him. Instead Hawke had decided to let him go, and when the man who had hired them protested violently (as those Hawke dealt with tended to do) this Zevran had reappeared and fought along with them. For the fun of it, it seemed.

Now the bodies of their enemies still twitched in their death throes and the blonde assassin was inviting himself into Hawke's bed, and possibly bringing Isabela as well, and Fenris focused on fastidiously cleaning his blade and not thinking of that warm room and Hawke's huge calloused hands on other, more accomodating bodies.

He continued to pretend to ignore their conversation until he heard plainly over the grinding of his own teeth the word "Starkhaven" insert itself into their banter.

Fenris looked up, suddenly alert. "What was that?"

"Ah, you are speaking to me now. How delightful." The other elf aimed at him a perfectly charming smile that he refused to return. "I was saying to your friends here that the Crows would have assassinated me themselves, instead of hiring your very capable party, had they not been busy with another contract. Fortunately for me."

Isabela had casually slung an arm around the slender elf's waist. "Not so fortunate for the other party."

"Indeed so. A political contract, the kind that pays most handsomely and brings a flock of Crows to call."

Fenris stood, a new anxiety coiling in his gut. "Concerning the Starkhaven royal family?"

"Correct. Predictably the current ruler of Starkhaven wishes to eliminate his potential rivals. And has paid a very generous sum, I am certain."

Hawke smacked his forehead. "Damn. Here I thought we were done for the day."

Zevran raised an eyebrow. "Oh? You are familiar with the Prince of Starkhaven?"

Approaching swiftly, Fenris demanded: "How much time do we have?"

The assassin frowned. "Oh dear. I am no longer a Crow, you understand, and my information is hardly up to date. If I know of it then the contract has already been issued, and... that means, I'm afraid, your friend is most likely already dead."

Fenris turned away from the group without awaiting their reaction and broke into a run.


	9. Retreat

Sebastian raced down the halls of the Chantry residence at top speed, clutching his bow. He could hear his pursuers clamoring behind him, just around the last corner.

Desperate, he dodged into the nearest open door.  It slammed shut behind him, and the archer whirled to find a Chantry sister barring it. 

"Sister, you must flee!" he urged her, panting. "The Crows have come for me. You shouldn't be anywhere near--" 

He froze with surprise as the sister threw off her hood and revealed a face he had never seen before. Sebastian thought he had met all of the new initiates, but he would surely have remembered this red-haired beauty. She crossed the room with unhurried grace and opened a window as he watched suspiciously.

"Come with me," she said, beckoning with a young and battle-scarred hand, and her unfamiliar Orlesian accent was hard to miss. No, this woman was not one of their initiates. Another assassin? 

"I'll pass, if you don't mind," he told her, backing towards the door. 

She smiled at him with unexpected gentleness. "Fear me not; I am on your side. The Seekers have sent me, you have heard of them, no? I came to protect Elethina, but I will gladly do you the same courtesy. Come, we must leave."

The door shuddered to their right, and splintered at their left. "I haven't much choice," the archer admitted reluctantly. 

"Careful of their arrows," the stranger said as she mounted the window frame. "You can call me Leilana," she informed him, and then dropped. 

Sebatian ran to the window and saw the agile woman catch on a few floors below and work at the locked windowpane while holding herself up with her other arm. Arrows began to stick into the wall all around her, and the archer quickly drew his bow to lay covering fire. 

"There must be dozens of them," he marveled out loud.

At first there had seemed only a few, easily held off, but more kept arriving from all directions and he had been forced to flee deeper into the Chantry grounds. Sebastian had heard of the Crows, of course. Growing up in a royal household one could not help coming across rumors of their activities. He had been told that to see any one of them in person meant your imminent death. 

Sebastian had no plans to die today. 

Though it seemed more and more that his plans may be thwarted.  He had been caught entirely unawares, wearing no armor and no helmet. In his haste he had grabbed only his grandfather's bow and his quiver. A poor choice, perhaps. His arrows did little now to dissuade the Crows on the ground, even when he caught one of them in the side. They continued to fire at his (perhaps?) ally as she worked at their potential escape route.

"Come!" he heard her call from below, just as one of the doors behind him gave way.

From the corner of his eye Sebastian saw the shape bursting through the door, and had no time for controlled drop. Instead he jumped through the window and just barely caught hold of a balcony below with a single hand, wrenching his arm nearly out of its socket. As he winced in pain his other hand opened, dropping his bow several stories to the ground.

Leilana gestured wildly and Sebastian grimaced in annoyance. Athletic he was, but light and agile he was not. Painfully he swung over to the windowsill and allowed her to pull him in and then drag him to his feet.

"Hurry, we must retreat to the catacombs," she was entreating him, when he heard a scream from outside.

To his horror, his eyes landed upon a dead sister, a true Chantry sister, collapsed in a heap, her blood staining the grass of the courtyard. Over her was a tall human in black armor, looking directly at him.

"No," he whispered. They would even kill the sisters. He had brought them here, and they were killing the sisters. How could he have been so selfish?

Leilana continued to grip his arm with both hands as he started back towards the window. "No, Brother Vael - what are you doing?"

He flushed with shame for his earlier foolishness. "I am going to them. This has to stop."

Leilana kept hold of his sleeve. "You would let the assassins win?"

"This is a desecration of the Chantry! This endangers everyone within these walls, imperils these innocent sisters who have sheltered me. I will not resist the Crows if it will keep more blood from being shed in this holy place."

"So they can shed your blood instead? No, Brother Vael. The Maker has another plan for you." She stepped backwards, slowly, pulling him along. "It is their sin, not yours. Do you think the sisters will rejoice to see you die? You are needed. Come with me and I will tell you what I have seen."

Dumbly he allowed himself to be dragged, still quailing in self-doubt.  _Yes run away Sebastian it's what you always do, you haven't got the guts to face your Maker today you coward..._

They raced across the third floor, tumbling over furniture without pause, until they reached the opposite end of the building and Leilana shoved him through another window. He tumbled onto the grounds, jolting his shoulder painfully. Meanwhile the Orlesian landed neatly on her feet and raced for the Crypts without a hitch in her step. "Come, Brother Vael, hurry!"

Wildly they raced to the crypt's entrance. As they ran, Sebastian caught sight of -- but no, that couldn't be. Why would Fenris be here? He was away in the countryside, and would be unaware of his peril, if he would even want to intervene.

There was no time to find out; he had just stopped to contemplate the sight when abruptly he was tackled by a heavy assailant only feet from the Crypt entrance, and only Leilana's swift intervention saved him from a bloody end. Her knife slit the black-armored man's throat, spilling blood across Sebastian's shirt, and the man fell heavily onto Sebastian's chest.

Sebastian slowly rolled the body off him and leapt to fumble with the mechanism that would open the heavy stone door. At his back the Orlesian sister produced a crossbow and fired rapidly. He could hear chaos erupting behind him, the clanging of swords, shouting, and the screams of the sisters. Sebastian recited the Chant to himself, forcing his hands to steady, until finally the door creaked open.

Once inside, the heavy door closed behind them, she produced something else from her long robes - a nasty-looking pouch full of dusky liquid, something he had seen Varric use once or twice.

"I would stand well away from here," she said, shaking the bag until it glowed and trembled in her hands. He noticed then, in that strange light, the bloodstains on her Chantry garment, and the arrow that protruded from her shoulder. Sebastian fell back then into the shadows, as she raised the deadly concoction and hurled it at the heavy door.With an unimaginable racket the bomb brought down the entrance to the crypt, tumbling down marble and shale in a dusty avalanche and effectively trapping them inside.

At least until the Crows could find another way in.

"They do not give up easily." Leilana broke the momentary silence after the crash. "We will lose ourselves in the Catacombs for now. Come along."

He fell into step beside her, eyeing with concern the wounds she had taken. "You are injured."

"So are you. Unless your arm normally bends like that."

"I think my shoulder's out of joint. But I'm lucky enough if that's the only wound I take from an encounter with the Crows."

His benefactor acquired a torch from the wall and lead them deeper into the catacombs, turning this way and that until Sebastian could not have said which direction lead back to where they came from. The cobwebbed stone walls looked exactly the same from one passage to the next, with the same tombs built into their indentures. Decorations and ornaments lined each tomb, but so layered with dust that nothing shone in the torchlight but their own garments.

"As I said," she explained as they walked, "my name is Leilana. The holy Mother may have described me, however, as Sister Nightengale."

His eyebrows rose in recognition. "The Orlesian Bard who fights with the Chantry? How fortunate for me that you were here."

"I have heard whispers of danger in the preceeding weeks. Your activities have attracted much attention, in the Free Marches and beyond. You have chosen a poor time for open war, Brother Vael."

"When is ever a good time?" he asked with some irritation. "How long should I allow a usurper to enjoy the throne of my murdered family?"

"I do not dispute your claim," Sister Nightengale said placidly. "I only know that your timing is worse than you think."

He couldn't wait any longer - "Did you see an elf out there? A white-haired elf with a heavy blade?"

"One fighting the Crows? Yes, I saw. His skin was glowing! Very prettily, I must say. I wonder how he does that?" 

Sebastian stopped short. "Oh Maker no. I have to go back."

"I'm afraid there is no way out in that direction. Not anymore"

Sebastian shook his head, distressed. "I cannot leave him to fight the Crows. He is my... he is a friend. I can't believe I didn't stop..."

"If you had, you would be dead. I'm sorry we had to leave him. He was too far from us to catch up, I'm afraid. I had to close our entrance before the assassins descended."

Sebastian closed his eyes, frozen with horror. _If anything happened to Fenris..._

Sister Nightengale touched his arm. "Do not worry for your friend. The Crows are single-minded; they pursue you, not him. I am certain he is fine. Much better than we will be if we do not keep moving."

"How could anyone do this?" Sebastian whispered. 

"Murder is common, I am afraid."

"Murder is no surprise anymore. But on Holy Ground? To slit a Chantry sister's throat? Do they not fear the Maker at all?"

She smiled wryly. "A Crow is hardened to such things. Or many of them are, at least. They will confess their sins afterwards, and their consciences will not trouble them." 

The two of them walked in silence for some time. The Catacombs were enormous and ancient, a hollow maze beneath the Chantry where Kings and priestesses and noble marchers were laid to rest. A map was necessary to find one's way, even for the eldest of the Chantry's servants. It was a useful way to deter thieves, who might have made themselves wealthy from the treasures buried within. Instead there were piles of bones in the dusty dark, of those unfortunate enough to try the maze and fail. 

Behind his eyelids he could still see Fenris fighting the Crows. A momentary glimpse only, but it told a story. The warrior looked magnificent in battle as always, but how long could he hold out against the greatest assassins in the world? He could not help but see the cuts multiplying across his tattoed skin and it made him wince. 

"Will we wait here, or resurface?"

"I am not certain." She hesitated. "You mentioned reinforcements?"

"At least one - my glowing friend."

"You will need a great deal more to clear your way."

"Fenris is worth at least a dozen men himself. And he may bring allies of his own." Sebastian shook his head. "But I do not know how he could find us, down here."

Leilana stopped and hurriedly emptied her satchels to prepare for the next wave of attacks. "He can follow the assassins to us, that should be guide enough."

"What do you mean --" Sebastian whirled around, catching signs of movement out of the corner of his eye. Crows. How on Earth? He wasn't sure where he was himself, how had the killers found him?

Leilana handed him a crossbow and drew a pair of long knives. "Keep moving. We can handle a few at a time, so long as we outrun the pack."

No sooner had she finished than a set of shadows emerged from the solid gloom and approached rapidly. They each took on a shape. In the flickering torchlight it was difficult to fire, and when Leilana dropped the torch to the ground it became nearly impossible. Sebastian grapped with a shockingly strong assailant, who twisted out of his grasp and dodged in and out of shadow. His crossbow was worse than useless and he was reduced to bashing at his enemy with it. Leilana was having little more luck with her opponent.

When more torchlight approached, his heart sunk to the floor. More assassins. This was not a battle they could win, after all. Then it was all for nothing, all of this violence and killing in the house of the Maker. 

But Leilana gleefully exclaimed, "Zev!" as though it were a victory cry, and abruptly both their assailants sunk to the floor. The torchlight approached and so too did lyrium-light, the light of Sebastian's own dreams, coming to him out of the darkness. Fenris was here. He brought help. They were coming from the distance, running up behind his latest rescuer.

Another unfamiliar accented voice was admonishing Leilana, this one Antivan. "You are much too easy to follow, the way you chatter! Songbirds should remain silent under pursuit, my flower."

But even as rescue arrived Sebastian's eyes were drawn away from the light, following a sound from the other passage at his back. A familiar sound, one he had heard over and over again since childhood. That of an arrow being knocked to a bow.

And then in an avalanche of pain Sebastian was knocked to the ground, an arrow burning in his chest. 


	10. Ceremony

It was decided, in the chaotic minutes following Sebastian's fall - struck down by an arrow to the chest from a Crow Assassin - that it would be better for everyone if he were dead. Publicly, at least.

Hawke had taken charge immediately, sending out scouts in each direction to clear the tunnels while they quietly planned. "Zevran, they will call off the attack when the target is down, right?"

Zevran was crouched on the ground next to a prone and trembling Sebastian, frowning thoughtfully. "The crow who killed the mark will typically take some type of trophy, to prove his success. Our glowing friend made sure that would not happen, however."

Fenris took no notice as he looked over the fallen prince anxiously. He had not stopped to wipe the blood from his hands before dropping to his knees at Sebastian's side. The unfortunate Crow's heart lay discarded somewhere on the dusty floor, a quick death his only prize for successfully shooting the Prince of Starkhaven. 

"They wouldn't take the body? To make sure?" someone asked, their voice indistinct in the echoing chambers of the catacombs.

"Of course not. A political assassination is no good without a funeral to drive the point home." Zevran examined the arrow still sticking out of Sebastian's chest. A near miss, miraculously avoiding the heart and lungs, although very painful just the same. "I suspect this arrow is poisoned. If they see the arrow and the wound, that will make them sure enough that their target is dead."

Fenris spoke up with a note of alarm. "Should I remove it?"

Leilana shook her head. "If we had tools for it, we would do it immediately. But here, no. It may do more damage on the way out than it did going in."

The markings on his skin blazed to life, and for the first time Fenris was glad of them. "I have all the tools I need," he said, and slowly reached into Sebastian's chest.

It was fortunate that he was unconscious for this. Most people found it alarming to see his hand disappear into their own torso. Even without seeing it the man twitched and shifted with discomfort, so that Leilana at his shoulder needed to hold him still. "How are you doing that? Is that lyrium?"

"Not now," he snapped at the strange woman. Delicately he probed the wound for the arrow's tip. While intangible, he could not feel the solidity of objects, but they conveyed a kind of temperature - warm living matter versus cold metal, the dense stillness of an inanimate object versus the pulse of a beating heart. The arrow was deep in the torso, surrounded by blood and other vital humors. "This will bleed tremendously," he said slowly. He worried that Sebastian could bleed to death if he removed the object now.

In the background, Hawke was debating a plan of action. "It will buy him time to get out of the city. We can carry him out - he's bloody enough he'll pass for dead."

"Not enough. The Crows will be suspicious - he would hardly be the first to fake his death to escape a contract on his life. We will need to dispose of a body."

Hawke grinned. "Fortunately we're in a crypt. Find one that's relatively fresh, stick an arrow in him, and voila!"

"Not bad. You would make a fine Crow, my large friend." Zevran looked throughtfully at the downed archer. "We would have to hide him somewhere down here, I'm afraid. He would be quickly discovered on the surface where the Crows are waiting."

"He needs a healer," Leilana interjected, her facinated eyes fixed to Fenris's hand buried in the man's chest.

"I am pulling it out," Fenris announced abruptly, and began to carefully ease the arrow out by the entry wound. Blood spilled afresh from the torn chest as Leilana pressed her Chantry robes to the wound's edge. When he pulled the last of the object free of him it was followed by a gushing of red that pulsed with his heartbeat, and Fenris immediately regretted his decision to remove it. At the sight of Sebastian's blood the arrow trembled in his seemingly-steady hands. He stared at the spreading red stain, wide-eyed and frozen.

Leilana held down her robe to the wound with steady pressure. "There are herbs in my bag that may slow the bleeding," she inclined her head to Fenris, who jumped to search them out. There were a lot of things in her bag and he ended up emptying them all on the floor, for her to point to the things she wanted.

"Isabela, find us a body," Hawke suggested nearby. "In one piece, preferably. We'll have to wrap it in a sheet."

"Or in Leilana's robe," Zevran suggested, unable to resist a waggle of his eyebrow at the thought.

"I am wearing clothes under this, you know," she informed him without looking up.

"Ah, disappointment wins the day."

The rest Fenris paid little attention to, the sounds of their conversation fading into the background. He saw only the Chantry redhead's slim hands tending to Sebastian's wound with her bag of powders and leaves until the spilling blood slowed to a trickle and then a stop. 

He left a hand lightly at the Prince's neck, just to be sure. It steadied his nerves  to find a pulse still pounding within. Sebastian's color was bad, though, and worsening. 

"He will need treatment for the poison," Sister Nightengale spoke up, "and soon. I can get it outside. There is not much more I can do now."

Fenris nodded. "I will stay with him, while you procure the medicine."

"You can't." Hawke would be firm on this point. "None of us can. We were all observed going in, we will all have to be observed coming out."

The elf narrowed his eyes up at his one-time lover, and told him firmly: " _I will not leave him alone._ "

"You have to. Unless you want all those assassins to come back and finish the job?"

Ruthlessly sensible, Hawke. Sometimes a man could hate him for that.

Fenris shook his head, unable to reply and rifling wildly through all the possibilities. He could not do it. He didn't know how but there had to be some way he could stay with the Prince in the catacombs. To leave him deserted and wounded in the dark would be unconscionable.

He checked once again the Prince's pulse, bare fingers lingering over the clamminess of his skin. The unconscious man's eyelids fluttered at the touch and his face tightened with the pain, an unfamiliar expression that put a knot in the elf's throat. 

When he looked up everyone was already prepared to leave. Now there was a body wrapped in Leilana's bloody Chantry robe, the broken shaft of an arrow peeking out through a fold. 

"He will not survive," Fenris said despondently, hoping to persuade someone to take his side. "The poison is taking him. I will not leave him here to... not alone..."

"This is his only chance," Leilana said. She crouched down lightly in front of Fenris, dressed now in a form-fitting shirt and trousers more suited to fighting than her Chantry robes had been. Her face, however, was calm and peaceful, much like those of the other sisters of the Chantry who he had met through Sebastian. "The Maker has a plan for your friend. Trust in Him to take care of Brother Vael."

"Plan or no," Fenris answered bitterly, "your Maker has done poorly by us so far. Why should I trust Him now?"

"Trust me then. If I thought he would not live, there would be no point in this charade. I promise you that he will not die."

"I will hold you to that, then," he promised her in return. "If he dies the fault is yours." She accepted that promise solemnly, having seen his bloody hands and what he could do with them, and did not waver. That more than anything else persuaded Fenris to go along with her.

The two of them put Sebastian, still unconscious, in the crypt where they had just procured the replacement body - that of a noble who had fallen to illness only weeks before. Fenris arranged him as comfortably as he could, still agonizing over the decision to leave him here. When he awoke, he would think they had abandoned him. That _Fenris_ had abandoned him. He would be back as soon as he could, but... to have him believe it even a short time would be intolerable. He would not wish that kind of despair on the kindhearted and melancholy Prince.

The only thing he could think to do was to leave something with him, something that may tell him that he had been here and would return. If he had anything of value he would leave that, but Fenris carried little of importance. He had only weapons, which would be of little comfort. 

Fumbling through his pockets Fenris came across the only thing that could suffice. A small scrap of cloth that for a time he had worn on his arm as a kind of tribute. The tribute had gone unnoticed (or uncared-for) and he had taken it off shortly after Hawke had taken up with Isabela. But he had kept it on his person, for reasons he did not fully understand.

This red scrap of cloth he pressed into Sebastian's hand, for him to find when he awoke. He hoped that his friend would recognize it, and that it would give him some comfort.

He hoped his friend would awake to notice anything.

He held the prince's hand a moment longer, and then settled it carefully at his side. If they did not hurry, none of this was going to matter. With Leilana's urging Fenris took up the burden of the wrapped body with Hawke at the other end, and solemnly they formed a procession, all of their unease directed to convey grief and defeat to whoever may be watching in the shadows.

They left carrying the torchlight, until the chamber where Sebastian lay grew dimmer and darker and the gloom settled over the unmoving residents of the catacombs until only death remained.


	11. Prayer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big thanks to Ilikelookingatnakedmen for her help with this chapter!

Leliana walked out of the Chantry into the chilly evening air, stretching her arms above her head and yawning. It had been a very long day.

She had emerged from the crypt that morning with Hawke’s band of misfits and performed the entire charade, mourning over the doppelganger they had substituted for Sebastian. While the man himself lay deep in the catacombs the Chantry sisters had taken the substitute body and prepared it according to the rituals prescribed for one of their own, a process that had taken most of the day. 

They had done nothing to reveal the ruse, the distinction between the letter and spirit of the law one they were happy to use - never calling the body by name, only “our brother” and “the departed” - and so they avoided the sin of outright lying. Lies of omission were for the Maker to judge, and they were all confident the Maker would not mind.

It had worked, or seemed to. Assassins had emerged from the Crypt in dribs and drabs, satisfied their task was complete. Hawke and his followers, too, had disappeared throughout the day, wandering off during the many long hours of ritual and assembly.

They had pulled the real Brother out of the Crypt only a short time ago, when the full moon rose high enough to light their way and all signs of Crows had been absent for hours. She and the other sisters struggled to haul him through the dusty passageways, and at the entrance stopped to slap him awake. Leliana checked his wound. The skin all around the place where the arrow had pierced him had turned coal-black and dark tendrils radiated out from the wound. They had to get him help, and immediately.

“Brother Vael,” Leliana instructed him, throwing a robe around his shoulders and forcing his eyes open, “you have to walk across the courtyard with us. In case anyone still watches.”

“Mmm” was his only response before his eyelashes fluttered and closed. 

They hauled him to his feet, and he dangled there across their shoulders. Leilana shook him and his head lolled. The Sisters exchanged panicked looks. If any Crows remained to watch, their ruse would be immediately ruined if they could not get him walking for at least a few minutes.

Sister Constance, with her chestnut hair and canny expression seized upon something clutched in Brother Vael’s hand. “What’s this?” she tried to ask him, as he grumbled low in his chest.

Leliana took it from her. A red cloth. Which the desperately ill Sebastian weakly fumbled to take back. She held it under his nose. “Sebastian? Open your eyes.”

A slit of brilliant blue showed itself below each eyelid. 

He gasped out a single word, focused upon the item he had held onto in the dark all those hours. “ _Fenris_ ,” he whispered. 

Leliana remembered.

“You will see your friend again. Sebastian? Look at me.” He took a pained, wheezy breath that made her own chest clutch in sympathy, and finally met her eyes. “He waits for you,” she told him. “Come, only just a bit farther. We will join him in the Chantry. Walk with us.”

He took a deep, shuddering breath and nodded almost imperceptibly. His balance was shaky, but with a Sister to each side to guide him with their hands on his arms, he was able to walk, very slowly, across the courtyard.

They got him inside just in time. Just after he crossed the threshold, Sebastian pitched forward and was unconscious before he hit the floor. His skin had been a dull gray in the candlelight when they got him into bed, and his body had seized and trembled with fever. Unable to help him further, she had retreated to the chapel to pray, leaving the Sisters to tend him. 

 _Surely the Maker smiles down upon a man with such friends,_  she thought now. _Both in and out of the Chantry. I must alert his companions to his condition, if I can find them. He will sorely need them now._

Leliana whirled around. _That man_ … She had just walked right past one of them, sitting on the steps just outside the Chantry. It was that unusual elf, the one she had met when she and Brother Vael were fleeing the Crows. The one whose skin had glowed, like a firefly. He was huddled against the cold with a heavy hooded cloak over him, and seemed not to have noticed her either. 

He had come to their aid outside, not very far from here, fighting quite ably against the greatest assassins in the world.

_“Fenris is worth at least a dozen men…”_

Sebastian thought very highly of him, at any rate. And that red cloth… it had something to do with him.

“What news?” he asked her abruptly, interrupting her thoughts.

His voice was as striking in the open air as it had been in the echoing catacombs. He did not seem to open his eyes, but she had the unnerving feeling that he could see her perfectly well.

“You are Fenris, correct? I had hoped to find you.”

He seemed uninterested in pleasantries. “Does he live?” His voice as tightly controlled as his face, willfully opaque. 

“He lives,” she told him quietly. “We pulled him out not an hour ago. But he is very unwell. Come inside with me and see him.”

Fenris shook his head very slightly. “I will wait here. Thank you,” he added, a faint afterthought. 

Leliana fumbled her response. She had not expected him to refuse. “Are you sure?”

The strange elf hesitated. He seemed to her incredibly tense and uncertain.  “That is the place for his closest friends, and family if any of those remain. I only wish to know how he fares.”

"I had the impression that **you** were his closest friend. Your place is at his side."

Fenris stood reluctantly. "I suppose... I suppose I am. However unlikely that seems. I confess I don't know what I can do for him. If there is nothing for me to stab or destroy I don't think I will be much use."

"It matters only that you are there. He is waiting for you, Fenris." Leliana started back towards the Chantry, motioning for him to follow. "Just being there will mean a great deal."

Fenris followed her quietly, seemingly deep in thought. As they passed into the cloister, Leliana asked if he would stop to pray in the chapel. He scowled.

“If the Maker would not see fit to preserve his truest follower, I don’t see why anything I had to say would sway Him.” 

“Perhaps we cannot sway the Maker. We can only tell Him what is in our hearts.” Leliana studied the strange elf with sympathy. “Sometimes it is only in the telling that we understand ourselves, no?”

Fenris shrugged and said nothing, and they passed into the cloister, through the winding corridors to the sickroom where Sebastian lay.

The Sisters cared for the prince as best they could, with quiet devotion. One of them dabbed at his face with a wet linen, another brewed some kind of tea for him to force down. Other robed women hovered around the room, jumping at any chance to bring him water or ointment or anything that could help. 

In the doorway Fenris stood dumbly, unable to do anything. His Prince looked so ill, and there was nothing he could do. He swallowed hard, and tried to catch his breath and recover. He had not felt so helpless since he had escaped Tevinter.

Leliana tugged on his arm, and before he could snap at her, he saw it. There, where she pointed, Sebastian’s hand lay on the bed, clutching at a red piece of cloth. 

He had kept it. He had kept it all those hours underground, and somehow held it all the way out of the crypt and as they carried him upstairs, when they put him to bed, and he clung to it still.

The room swam in front of Fenris’s eyes.

He  _was_  waiting for him. Waiting especially for him.

It was frightening, to have someone rely on him. He had kept himself at a distance, lived apart from everyone, surrounded himself with grime and disrepair and spikes and swords, and thought it a favor to everyone that he spared them his company. But Sebastian… somehow he had gotten through. For some reason beyond his understanding, Sebastian had given him that closeness. And what had he ever given him in return?

Fenris sat at the side of the sickbed and gingerly touched Sebastian's hand, taking it in both of his. There was no response from the Prince, only a certain tightening around his eyes that indicated pain and distress and made Fenris’s stomach twist and his throat clench. 

Fenris sat quietly for some time, holding his hand and watching him. 

Then, to the shock of everyone present, Fenris began to sing.

Quietly at first, then growing in power and confidence, until everyone around stopped what they were doing and watched.

He sang in Tevene, a language only the eldest of the Chantry sisters had ever spoken, but even the youngest among them could recognize the distant cousin to their own sacred Chant. The cadence was different, the words changed, but the tune was quite similar. The Black Divine was a heretic and blasphemer to the denizens of the Free Marches, and his Imperial Chant considered a corruption of their own. It was inappropriate, to say the least, to voice it in the true Chantry.

The priestesses would have no way of knowing that Sebastian had asked many times for Fenris to sing him the Tevinter Chant. He had guessed correctly that the elf would know it by heart, and he had always imagined that Fenris's sonorous voice singing a prayer to the Maker would be a surpassingly beautiful sound. Fenris had always refused him - gently, not rudely. The interest touched him. But it was not a thing that he could do. Not then. Not for anyone. 

Here, helpless before Sebastian’s illness it seemed the only thing he could do, and the Sisters did not recoil in disgust but watched in fascination, perceiving the song for what it truly was. A prayer.

The elf’s voice was strong and resonant, the strange foreign words elegant. The tune needed no accompaniment. He could have been singing in a cathedral, before the Maker and all the Imperium, so perfectly he recalled their every nuance, every note.

Sebastian Vael sighed appreciatively, tears glimmering in his eyes, and squeezed Fenris’s hand. 


	12. Knight

Sebastian floated.

It was very cold. The sensation was not physical. He could not feel his body at all. He felt it in the part of him that was not-body -- mind then, or perhaps soul.

Cold, like the spaces between the stars.

He must have gotten lost somewhere in the catacombs. That was the only explanation that made sense. He knew he had been running through the crypt with the red-headed sister. He had been running, and the Crows were coming, and then there was darkness. Only darkness.

Semi-conscious, he drifted in and out of sleep. Images shuffled like cards in his mind’s eye.

_The golden fields outside Starkhaven, where as a boy he had lain hidden amongst the birds and the grain and daydreamed to his heart’s content, staring up at an endless blue sky._

_His grandfather’s bow, dropped clumsily to the ground when he jumped out of a Chantry window. He had only just found it. Now who knows where it had gone, if he would see it again._

_His mother and brothers, the last time he had seen them alive, through a window as he left the estate. Light-hearted, laughing. The very picture of a happy family, without him._

_Darkness, for what seems like an age. Something in his hand._

_The man in black armor who had killed a Chantry sister, and in turn been throat-slit by Sister Nightingale. He had no time to confess his sins to the Maker after all._

_A lover murmuring to him, her long hair the color of walnuts brushing against his face as he lay with his head in her lap in some tavern's half-lit back room. Try as he might he could not recall her name, nor could he see the color of her eyes._

_Huge, empty rooms that echoed his small footsteps as he wandered them alone._

_Mother Elthina, watching him at a distance as he conducted services. A small, unsmiling nod of approval, enough to make him swell with pride._

_Snowfall on a barren field._

_The stars slowly coming into view, somewhere in the darkness above him._

* * *

This time of dreamy nothingness seemed to last forever.

* * *

But then it ended. Rude hands and loud voices jarred him into wakefulness, with a light that hurt his eyes.

He could not make sense of what was happening. He was being forced to move, and it _hurt_. Hands were pulling and lifting him and he gripped his right fist tightly so not to lose what was in his hand. 

His body did not seem to fit him anymore. It was too small, it clenched him too tightly.

Sebastian found himself upright, being _held_ upright by blurry figures, and it felt much worse. It felt like being pulled apart. Stretched. Sebastian could not escape them, his limbs would not obey. Frustrated, he tried to tell them to go away. Why couldn't they leave him alone? Couldn't they see he was  _tired_? That he needed to  _rest_? 

_“Brother .. have to... with us... anyone... watches.”_

"What?" he tried to say, but his tongue was thick and clumsy. 

His hand was pried open and the thing he had clung to for so long slipped away. He couldn't reach after it. A distressed moan broke from him.

"Open your eyes," a familiar voice said. 

There in front of him, he finally saw what he had held to. Fenris's token. He had seen it a hundred times around the elf's bare arm, standing out against the silvery lines of lyrium like a flag. A brilliant red cloth heavy with meaning he could not guess.

She should not have that. It belonged on Fenris's arm.  

_Fenris._

A burst of longing broke through his distress. "Fenris...." he gasped, hoping someone would understand and bring him here. If he could just see him again, all would be well. Anything else that happened to him after that would be all right. 

Sister Nightengale's voice became clearer, more real. He could see now her lovely red hair and the concern on her face. “He waits for you..." she said in a voice like bells ringing. "we will join him... Walk with us.”

Slowly, so slowly, he managed to walk. The Sisters at each arm guided him, practically carried him between each shuddering step. He had to keep his eyes shut, or the dizziness would be overwhelming. All the while he wondered -  _Fenris was here, wasn't he? I remember... maybe..._

As the cold began to recede, there was pain. Everywhere there was pain.

They were telling him he had almost made it, when he plunged again into the icy waters of unconsciousness and left all this effort behind.

* * *

_He stood in the Sanctuary, paying Ser Hawke for killing the mercenaries who had murdered his family. He felt no guilt for their deaths, but paying a stranger to do it made him feel vaguely dirty. He felt certain now he should have done it himself._

_Hawke’s companions hung back: the big man's sister, looking uncomfortable, and the Rivaini woman, working to cheer her up. Hawke introduced them -- Bethany, Isabela. And that grouchy elf over there is Fenris._

_Sebastian glanced over._

_The tall elf turned away from the group of them with his arms crossed, facing a shelf of candles. The candlelight flickered over him in profile, revealing harsh features, sharp edges and clawed gauntlets. He gleamed, both metal armor and strange tattoos catching the light. A warrior, forged iron-hard in fires he could not imagine._

_The priest paid him little mind. Sebastian turned back to Hawke and his endless questions. Impatience, a vice he had not yet managed to eliminate, flared at the impetuous man's attitude, his obvious disdain for the Chantry. They could not leave quickly enough._

_As they finally turned to go, Sebastian spotted a swift and unexpected act. That odd swordsman stopped to relight a candle that had guttered out as Hawke carelessly passed – quickly, without ceremony. Smoothly and without a word he rejoined their little group.  None of them seemed to have noticed the deed._

_It took only a moment. Sebastian could easily have missed it. Having seen it, he could not forget._

_He followed the four of them to the door and_ _cleared his throat. “I thank you for your service, Ser Hawke. Ladies. Fenris.”_

_At his name, the elf turned his face to them and nodded very slightly, and Sebastian could see his eyes were very green and very bright, not at all as he had expected._

_The expression, struck by a bolt from the blue, was one he would later apply to this moment. The astonishing sensation of looking into this strange man's eyes._

_It was only a moment, and then the elf had turned to leave._

_But then--_

_But then he turned back, and opened his mouth and began to sing._

_Sebastian startled. He stumbled back and looked all around him, because he knew **this wasn't right**. _ **_That wasn't what happened._  ** _Fenris had left the Chantry without saying a word that day, and in fact it had been years before he would hear that voice speaking for the first time._

_But still he heard the song all around him, filling the Chantry. Filling his entire being._

_Calling to him in the faraway place he had been dwelling, and beckoning him back._

* * *

With some effort, he opened his eyes, really opened them, and found him there. It was no dream. Fenris was singing. He was sitting next to him and singing the Tevinter Chant the way Sebastian had always asked him to, with his green eyes fixed to his.

He couldn’t understand a word of the song, but it rang through him like a familiar friend, like his own beloved verses. It was so beautiful, even better than his daydreams. 

Fondly, without effort, a smile spread across his face, and for the moment his pain receded behind a surge of happiness. 

* * *

Later, when he would be well again and circumstances were very different, he would suggest that Fenris repeat his performance sometime when he wasn’t half-conscious. It seemed quite unfair to do it only once, and when he could not remember it.

This, though, was a lie. Sebastian did remember it. He would remember it until the day he died.

* * *

Sebastian would never be able to recall clearly the events of the next few days. Large stretches of time were missing from his memory, and the remainder was a jumble of confused images.

Time seemed to slip by in great leaps, so that whenever he opened his eyes it would be impossible to tell whether moments or hours had passed since he had closed them.

When he opened his eyes again, daylight poured through a tiny window. He was in one of the Chantry cells, where the priestesses lived, a spare little room consisting of a bed and not much else.

Fenris sat in a chair beside the bed, polishing his sword until it gleamed. Sebastian stared at him for some time before the elf noticed that he was awake.

“I will protect you,” he said, polishing away the bloodstains from his blade. “I will let noone hurt you again.”

Sebastian smiled larger than was probably appropriate. His face hurt, he smiled so.

“My bodyguard,” he murmured.

Even in his weakened state, he caught the shadow that flickered across the elf’s face. Wrong word. That monster Danarius had called him his bodyguard.

Quickly he amended: “Knight... of the Chantry.”

The shadow passed. “A knight Templar? Somehow I don’t think their armor would suit me.”

“Lyrium knight.” It took a lot of energy to speak. He had to stop to catch his breath. 

The polishing motions stopped, and Fenris looked solemnly at him. “Rest, Prince. You are not yet well.” The elf leaned closer, and Sebastian could see dark rims around his eyes. "The Grand Cleric has given permission for me to stay, to guard against a further attempt by the Crows. Until the danger has passed, I will not leave your side."

"Thank you," he said hoarsely. Then Fenris forbade him to speak further, and sleep caught him soon after.

* * *

He would be in and out of pained and restless sleep for days, and lying abed longer than that, and when he grew well enough to move about he would find himself weak as a kitten.

His convalescence would be frustrating, but Sebastian could think of worse fates. Despite the circumstances, to have Fenris all to himself seemed the greatest of luxuries. 

Until now he had only ever seen the warrior elf in short interludes, a bright few hours at a time with long stretches in between. Sebastian looked so forward to these encounters that when the opportunity arose he would shamelessly drop whatever he was doing for a chance to see him.

Here he awoke to find Fenris there at his side, perusing a book, frowning at the text with a furrow between his brows, and the sight would make his heart swell so in his chest he thought it might break in two.

Sebastian couldn't ignore it any longer, this ache. He loved Fenris. Maker, how he loved him. His glares and his sighs and his beautiful eyes as clear as cut glass and his hair that desperately wanted combing and his terrible posture and eerie grace and everything about him, everything.

The feeling welled up so strongly within him that he feared it would burst out uninvited. He felt he could blurt out “I love you” at any given moment, some time when he was too tired to stop himself, and everything would be ruined. He would have to guard himself carefully to prevent such an outburst, which would surely drive his friend away.

But he would hold every moment of this tightly, fixing it in his mind so that he would have it always. This interlude of calm and recovery, when he could be alone with the one he adored. His knight. 


	13. Ultimatum

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to [ilikelookingatnakedmen](http://ilikelookingatnakedmen.tumblr.com) for being a fabulous beta on this installment.

Sebastian recovered slowly from the Crow poison. After the days of semi-consciousness had passed, he would walk around the courtyard with Fenris close at his side. His body seemed sluggish and weak after the days in bed. He tired quickly. He would seem fine, and then would suddenly be drained of all energy. His left arm remained in a sling, recovering from his dislocated shoulder.

Fenris made a surprisingly considerate companion. He would slow his pace beside him without making it obvious, would steady him when he wobbled and leave him be when he felt strong. He told deadpan jokes about the Chantry sisters, about arcane bits of Andrastian catechism that he had sounded out while Sebastian slept. He flipped through a pile of books he found in the cloister and left bits of paper in them, to mark the things he wanted to ask his friend about when he awoke.

He seemed not to need rest. He would make rapid sweeps of the building, watching for danger. Sometimes when Sebastian awoke in the night and missed the shape of him in his customary seat beside his bed, and he would catch through the open door a faint glimmer of lyrium in the dark, a suggestion of movement nearby, that was Fenris prowling silently in the corridors.

The Sisters appeared not to mind him. Perhaps they felt safer too.

They talked. At length, about everything, all through the day and sometimes into the night. Fenris relayed all the news of Kirkwall that did not reach beyond the Chantry walls, and Sebastian told stories about Starkhaven and his boyhood. In time Fenris spoke of his days with the Fog Warriors. He informed Sebastian of the revelation Hadriana had made about his sister in Tevinter, and his attempts to search for her. In return Sebastian told him about his family, about the wilder days of his youth and how he regretted alienating himself from them with no opportunity to reconcile before their deaths.

After days of it they had still more to tell each other. It seemed they would never run out.

The Grand Cleric appeared quite suddenly. The two of them had been sharing the room in peaceful and companionable silence, Fenris sharpening his blade while Sebastian stood shirtless before a basin and a mirror and attempted to shave several days worth of growth from his chin. The late morning sun peered through the single window. Then a light cough alerted them both to the figure standing in the doorway.

"Your Grace," Sebastian greeted her, hastily wiping at his face with a towel.

"Brother Vael," she said, and smiled. "It is good to see you up and around."

Her entire face changed, softened, whenever she smiled, so that she might be a doting grandmother or schoolteacher. But her smile did not last, and her face hardened again to the inflexible grimace of the Grand Cleric.

"Sebastian, please sit down. There is something we must discuss."

Fenris had set down his sword at her entrance, and watched the exchange quietly. As Sebastian sat on the bed, he raised his eyebrows at the human, inquiring silently whether he should leave them in private.

Sebastian motioned for him to stay. "What is it, Your Grace?"

Elthina's cool grey eyes passed over Brother Vael's elven companion without comment.

"A service was held for Sister Ursula yesterday."

Sister Ursula was the name of the woman who had been killed by one of the Crows, during the attempt on Sebastian's life.

"Why wasn't I informed?" Sebastian exclaimed, aghast. "I would have paid my respects."

"You are still recovering. And it would not have been appropriate."

A bewildered look crept across the prince's face, and Fenris was developing a sinking feeling in his gut. This was not good.

"Your Grace, I -- I cannot tell you how much I regret what has happened. You have sheltered me here all these years and it has meant more than I can say. I never meant for this violence to follow me here."

"Did I not warn you," she spoke firmly, "against seeking your vengeance? That it would lead you away from the righteous path?"

"Had I known the cost I would never have pursued it. Any of it." Sebastian had turned decidedly pale, and looked rather more the scolded child than the rightful ruler of Starkhaven. "You must believe me, Elthina. I support the Chantry with my whole heart. I never intended to risk any of your lives."

"I believe that. I know that your love of the Maker is pure and your faith is strong, and it is why I have allowed you to remain. But circumstances have changed. Innocent blood has been spilt. And while her blood is not on your hands, it was done in your name."

"Revered Mother..." Sebastian tried to speak up.

"Your continued presence is a danger to us. You cannot serve the Maker here until that danger is neutralized."

He looked up hopefully. "You would allow me to stay?"

"We would not turn you out. But we can no longer keep you here unless you have taken vows, Sebastian. You have had a great deal of time to think it through, and now that time is up. You must either leave the Chantry or commit yourself to it forever."

"But the danger..."

Fenris spoke up astutely. "It will pass, if you are committed permanently to the Chantry. Taking your vows will indicate that you are not going to invade Starkhaven. In which case there will be no need for the contract with the Crows to be reinstated when they discover that you are not dead."

"Precisely." The priestess nodded to him. "Either you will seek your family's throne in Starkhaven, and set about doing it quickly, or you will become an avowed Brother of this Chantry. You cannot do both. You must choose your path, and do it soon.”

"But I don't know which to take! If I did I would have chosen long ago!" Sebastian's clear blue eyes shone suddenly with unshed tears. "Why will the Maker not tell me what I am to do? Every day I plead with Him for an answer."

"Sadly, until the Chant of Light has passed unto every corner of the world, we must wander in darkness, and the Maker will not show us his face. We must listen with all our hearts for his will to become clear. What does your heart say?"

Sebastian shook his head. "I don't know. Is it wicked of me? It seems that I _should_ know one way or another. Some days I am certain that I am where I belong, and other days just the opposite. What do you think I should do, Your Grace? Surely if the Maker meant me to commit my life to His service, I would be certain of it? Tell me it is so!"

"I cannot. And neither can he," she nodded purposefully at Fenris. "Only you can decide."

"But--"

She interrupted him sharply. "For this you must rely on yourself. Stop putting the responsibility for your life in other people's hands. It's always been someone else's wishes, or someone else's fault. You have had the time, Sebastian, to think about what you want. Now you will have to choose."

Fenris nodded to the Grand Cleric politely before asking a question. "The prince is not yet well enough to travel. If he must go..."

"Our Sisters say that the danger is past, and he will regain his strength rapidly." She returned her gaze to Sebastian. "You will have three days to decide. I can't risk any more than that, my son. I truly regret that it has come to this."

********************

When the Grand Cleric left them, it was quiet for some time.

Sebastian stood and returned to the mirror, resuming his shaving. Fenris, however, did not pick up his sword. He only looked at Sebastian probingly as he carefully ran the straight blade over his skin.

"What will you do?" he asked quietly.

Sebastian continued shaving, saying nothing. His strong profile remained steady as he contemplated his work in the mirror. But when he put down his blade, and wiped his face clean, his expression crumbled into uncertainty.

"Three days to decide," he said into the mirror. "I have had years to consider my options with no success. I don't know what difference a few more days will make."

He turned away from the mirror and climbed onto his bed, painfully avoiding his injured shoulder. Leaning against the bedframe, he sighed and closed his eyes.

Fenris stood, and sheathed his sword at his back. "I will leave you to contemplate. It has been some time since I went back to the manor... I will return tonight."

Sebastian looked up, and spoke as if he had not heard him. "You never answered me. I have asked many times, and you never answered. Will you come with me to Starkhaven, if I go?"

Fenris looked at the floor, and his hair fell over his eyes. And Sebastian _knew_.

"You aren't coming."

The elf's hands curled abruptly into fists, and his gaze stayed fixed to the floor. "I would like to. I had thought that I would... But."

"You can't."

"I… have made some arrangements for my sister to travel here. To Kirkwall."

"Your sister." His mouth had gone entirely dry. He had found his sister after all. Why did he not say anything?

"I - Yes. I found her only recently. Someone who claims to be her." He looked up, finally. "Aveline has helped me to confirm the details. I have booked passage for her. I do not know when she will arrive, but it must be soon. Perhaps a week from now."

"And you must be here to greet her. I understand. This is very exciting news. Wonderful news!" Sebastian tried valiantly to sound enthusiastic.

"I-" Fenris started again. Then he stopped, and ran his hand through his hair agitatedly. "I did not want to trouble you with my problems when you have so many of your own. This is important to me. She may be my only family. But... you. You are... also important."

Sebastian's breath caught. The implication that he meant something to Fenris, something comparable to family... it made his heart thump excitedly in his chest.

At the same time... a sister. This was a huge development. Of monumental importance.

He knew what this sister must mean to Fenris. After all that had been taken from him, any chance at recovering a part of his past was truly precious. He had to pursue this.

"You must meet her," he told the elf sincerely. "She may have the answers you need. Do not even consider passing that up for my campaign."

Fenris looked relieved, though still sorry. "I will rejoin you soon after. I can follow to Starkhaven, if you go."

He shook his head sternly. "And abandon your sister in a strange city, in a strange country, where she may not even speak the language? I think not. And certainly you will not drag her along on a military campaign. No, you must stay in Kirkwall."

Fenris dropped his head again. Sebastian did not like this look, so forlorn, with a hint of subservience to it. He did not like to think that he had put it there.

"Perhaps, if you stayed in Kirkwall as well..." the elf suggested hesitantly.

Sebastian had never really explained to him what would happen if he chose to take the Chantry vows. Sitting himself up straight, he told him the truth: "Once I have taken my vows, my circumstances will change. I will not be able to take up arms. I will, in fact, rarely leave the Chantry grounds. If ever."

Fenris looked up suddenly. "But the sisters... they are always out amongst the populace!"

"They are women. They are Andraste's hands, they travel everywhere and perform many kinds of work. But male initiates stay within the house of the Maker, and do not make much contact with the outside world. Our place is in contemplation, in prayer, and in service to the Grand Cleric and to the Sisters. It is only after many years of devotion that some are permitted to leave, and only for particular missions on the Chantry's behalf."

For a moment the elf looked utterly shocked, as though it had not occurred to him that this would be a possibility. His eyes were wide and shot through with sudden hurt. Then, with a visible effort, he cleared the dismay from his face. So quickly it made Sebastian wince internally.

"It seems we are to be parted no matter what occurs," Fenris said.

Sebastian attempted to sound cheerful. "It is as Elthina said. I cannot rely on you or anyone to help me decide. If I had known I would have your friendship on one path and not the other, I would be greatly affected. Now I must truly decide this alone."

Fenris only said, softly, "I wish it were not so."

Sebastian took in the sight of him, of his tattooed fists clenched and his head bowed low, and the sorrow he felt in that moment was almost too much to bear. To be forced to leave his side now was a cruel shock after they had grown so close. He wanted to gather the smaller man in his arms and tell him the truth: that he loved him, that he would always love him, whether he was worlds away or locked in the cloister. If he could he would make that love a garland and hang it around the elf's neck, so that he could feel it there always and never hang his head again.

But he did not truly know if it would be a gift or a burden, and so he kept it to himself.

"I wish that too," he said.

His head fell back on the pillow and he looked at the window, at the sun hanging high in the sky, and he thought: _Three days._


	14. Revelation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks once again to [ilikelookingatnakedmen](http://ilikelookingatnakedmen.tumblr.com/)for her input on this installment)

Fenris paced restlessly around and around the Chantry courtyard. 

An entire day had passed since Elthina had issued her deadline, and Sebastian gave no indication of making his decision. He had stopped walking the courtyard with Fenris, and had withdrawn into long stretches of silence. He looked out the window and sighed. The long conversations of before had dried up - every word they spoke to each other now was weighted with the knowledge that it would be one of the last.

Two days, now, before they would be forced to separate.

Fenris had grown listless sitting silently in Sebastian's room while the man pondered his future. He did not want to unduly influence his decision - Elthina was right about that, at least. The Prince would have to decide this on his own. So he had taken up his sword and gone out to patrol the area. He had left Sebastian alone in his room, but was unwilling to go far from him, in case any danger still remained. 

The weather was unreasonably beautiful, enough to irk Fenris in his foul mood. He slunk about the expansive Chantry complex, avoiding the sunshine, and trying to ignore the tight twisting sensation in his stomach.

Fenris did not know what Sebastian was going to do. It was his opinion, privately, that Sebastian did not belong here. Though he would undoubtedly make a fine avowed brother, he would in the end be evading his true calling as a leader of men. Fenris found it difficult to understand why the Prince was so reluctant to return to Starkhaven. He had a different answer every time someone asked him. This inexplicable hesitation made it very difficult to predict what he would do. 

He was devoted to Elthina, that much was certain. It would pain him to leave her, especially in Kirkwall's current situation. It did not seem wise to make such a permanent decision to please one person, but Fenris had not been asked his opinion and would not have offered it. His own decision-making had not been so stellar that he could offer advice to anyone else.

And evidently what happened to Sebastian from here on out did not concern him.

His mood darkening further, the elf retreated inside, away from the Sisters who walked along the garden paths and murmured prayers to the silent Maker.

There had been no further news from Aveline on the status of Varania's ship. This was the other concern weighing on his heart, and yet he felt he could not discuss it with Sebastian now. He could not ask the archer to come with him to confront his sister; he was not yet well enough to fight, should this prove to be a trap. If Sebastian even thought of the possibility of a trap he would insist on coming, and Fenris could not risk that. He would have Aveline and Hawke, and whomever Hawke could convince to come along, and that would be enough. If in fact Danarius was behind this, Fenris wanted Sebastian nowhere near it.

Lost in thought, he slipped into the long halls that bordered the Chantry courtyard, where he could hear voices murmuring nearby. He slowed as the voices grew louder, and stepped into an alcove, in no mood to exchange pleasantries with the Sisters of the Chantry.

The small cluster passed him slowly, deep in conversation. He could recognize some of them now, from their tending of the Prince in his illness. One of them was the redheaded Sister Nightingale, at the center of the group. Her voice, so sweet and light, with its Orlesian lilt, was easy to identify in the crowd.

"They seem a good match," she was saying.

Unfamiliar voices followed.

"But isn't he a ... heathen?"

"Worse.. a Tevinter. A follower of the Black Divine. He sang the Imperial Chant, remember?"

Fenris pulled back farther into the shadows, realizing they were discussing him.

"Perhaps Brother Vael has converted him."

"I think they're adorable. So considerate of each other."

"But it's wrong. Brother Vael is called to serve the Maker and ignore worldly concerns. The elf is tempting him away from his calling."

_Tempting...?_

"But to be carrying on in Andraste's own house of worship! There is only a single bed in that room, you know. It's indecent."

Then he heard a girlish giggle from one of the younger sisters, hastily stifled. "Oh, I shouldn't. But they are both very pretty though, don't you think?"

Another laugh, this one definitely belonging to Sister Nightingale. "They certainly are. And I can confirm that they have eyes only for each other. It's really quite sweet."

Fenris was stunned by what he was hearing.

_They believe we are... sweethearts...!_

"Hmph," the elder sister grumbled. 

As they passed on, Fenris stayed rooted to the spot, his heart beating wildly in his chest, pounding in his ears until he could hear nothing else. His eyes closed, and he leaned his head back against the wall and tried in vain to calm himself.

Unexpectedly he thought of Hawke, who had not crossed his mind for some time. He thought of the fire in Hawke's bedroom, of staring into it for hours while feeling very much like he did now. 

While most of him was reeling, there was a small, calm voice inside him that said:

_what did you **think** was happening?_

**************************

Sebastian was deep in thought when he heard Fenris returning. He stood before the window with his arms crossed, steeling himself for the difficult days ahead.

This time he would have news for the elf. Unexpectedly, he found he had already reached a decision. He was slowly realizing that, in fact, he had reached this decision long ago, and had been hesitating to act upon it until the Crow attack had forced his hand.

It was strange how one could hide the truth from themselves, at least until you were compelled to look more closely.

He would have to leave the Chantry. He would be sorry to go, when he had been so content within these walls, felt so accepted, so fulfilled. But there had always been a Vael in Starkhaven. Whatever his doubts about his own abilities, he must do the best he could to carry on the family name. And to salvage the city from the treacherous reprobates who had taken it from them.

Though it would pain him to leave Fenris behind, perhaps someday they would be able to meet again. It seemed unlikely they would ever regain the accord they had found in Kirkwall, this alliance of equals. After this the ground would shift, and he would no longer be Brother Sebastian but Prince Vael, and everything would be different. But Fenris seemed unimpressed by nobility and unaffected by the prejudice against him as an elf, and it was possible that they could reestablish a friendship on these new terms. At least, he would hold onto these hopes to sustain him during what promised to be a long and difficult campaign.

And here was his friend now, reflected in the glass. The handsome Tevinter elf, who had always held him in such esteem, and made him feel that there was at least one person in this world who he had not disappointed. 

Sebastian turned away from the window and smiled at him as he entered, and then his smile faded.

Fenris had a strange look on his face, one that Sebastian had never seen there before.

"What's wrong?" he asked, flooded with concern.

Fenris looked at the floor, and he looked at the window, and everywhere in the room except for where Sebastian was.

"I have heard a funny thing," he said.

Sebastian sat down, feeling apprehensive. "Tell me."

"It was the woman, Sister Nightingale. Speaking to the other Sisters."

He still would not look Sebastian in the face.

"They seem to believe that we are lovers." He said it quickly, as though the words burned him on the way out. 

Sebastian's stomach sank to the floor.

"Why would they think that?" he asked. It came out more of a whisper than anything else.

Sebastian took a deep breath. Maybe he could still salvage this. "I didn't- they may have gotten the wrong idea. But it is not from anything I have said. Or that anyone else has said. It isn't... malicious. It's..."

He trailed off helplessly, staring back into Fenris's striking green eyes, and the storm of emotions that raged behind them.

He could have stopped this. Sebastian could have brushed this off as idle gossip and soothed the elf's concern, and nothing would have changed. But he just couldn't. His mouth opened, and the words would not come out.

Confronted with the truth, he would not be able to deny it. This was it. The archer balled his hands into fists, so that they would not shake so obviously, and he closed his eyes and said it:

"They must have sensed... what is in my heart."

Fenris took a sharp, shuddering breath that sank the prince's hopes like a stone into the sea. But it was too late to stop himself now. He had broken a seal over his heart and it would all come flooding out, beyond his ability to control.

"I am in love with you, Fenris."

The elf shook his head in disbelief. "You _cannot_ be. Your vows..."

Sebastian opened his eyes and met his gaze now, steadily. "I have had no intention of breaking my vows, not ever."

He relaxed slightly. "The love of a brother, then. I feel the sa-"

"No. Not of a brother. Nor of a friend." Sebastian gathered his thoughts. He felt he must be as truthful as possible. It may be his only chance to explain himself. "I wish I were an eloquent man, or a spinner of tales like your friend Varric. I don't know how to convey it to you, what I feel. But I love you. They sound like such empty words, but they're all I have. These days here, with you, even with my illness... I have never been happier. In all my life."

"How long. How long has this been.. happening?"

"Since the day we met." He could not stop himself from smiling. "In the Chantry. You relit the candles when Hawke knocked them out. And you turned to look at me and when I saw your face, your eyes... there has been nothing else for me ever since. I have wanted nothing more than to be with you. Maker help me."

"All this time. You have been... _ogling_ me all this time."

"No--" Sebastian tried to speak over him, to make him stop and _listen,_ but Fenris only raised his voice louder and louder.

" _What do you_ _ **want**  _ _from me?_!"

"Your friendship! That is all, truly all. I would never have acted on this - but it doesn't matter now. Tomorrow I am leaving and you will stay."

"Stop." Fenris put up a hand, stumbling backwards towards the door. "I thought you were my friend. My -- one of my only friends! And you only wanted--"

"Fenris," Sebastian pleaded with him, "I  _have_ been your friend! I have never lied to you, and I've never meant to mislead you in any way."

Fenris said something in a low voice that was very hard to make out, something that ended with: "is this all that anyone wants of me?" Then he swallowed hard and spat out, louder, "I must go."

"Wait!"

Fenris rushed out of the room at once, flying down the hall with Sebastian's fast and desperate stream of words chasing him. Sebastian shouted his name one last time from the doorway. He did not see the Sisters frozen in other doorways, staring at him wide-eyed. He only saw Fenris running away from him as fast as he could.

Panicking, he turned back to grab his boots and pull them on, hastily, over his bare feet. He grabbed for the nearest shirt and jerked his arms through it, and hastily began to button it as he headed for the door. But then he suddenly stopped, and his arms dropped uselessly to his sides as he panted into the empty room.

_Don't follow him. He doesn't want you to follow._

_He doesn't want you._ _Why would he? No one else has._

Sebastian had always known this, but still to have it confirmed knocked the breath out of his body. He stood frozen to the spot as a shockwave ripped through him, and a low cry of grief tore from his throat. 

This was it. The moment he lost Fenris. There would be no reunion after this, no fantasy of salvaging their friendship sometime in the future. He had told Fenris the truth and he had walked away, he was gone. Sebastian had known it would happen someday, but he could not have imagined it would hurt this much. The lyrium elf may as well have reached in and plucked out his heart as he went.

It was too much. The pain of it overtook him, flooded his body until he could no longer stand, and he fell to his knees and wept.


	15. Vows

Brother Sebastian attended his last service quietly. This time he did not join the chorus or stand at the Grand Cleric's side as he once had. He sat alone at the back, a cloak covering his face. 

Strange, to watch from this angle again. It was practically an out-of-body experience for him, after growing so used to standing on the other side, with the robed figures and their holy vestments. 

Still, the deep, rich reds of the sanctuary soothed him, as did the candlelight all around him. Every candle was someone's prayer, and there were hundreds of them. All of these pleas and wishes, cries in the dark. Andraste knew each one, even when their candles guttered and went out. Sebastian knew that as surely as he knew his own name.

Perhaps it was the lonely child he once had been who was comforted by those candles. In those days, when there had been no one to listen to him and his silly little dreams, he might have been comforted by the thought that the Maker hears everyone. Only as an adult did he truly come to know that.

But by then he had given up dreaming. 

Sebastian frowned. No. None of this melancholy today. There would be no time for it now.

He let the dulcet tones of the Chant wash over him, fill him with warmth and peace, and he remained silent. Today he wanted to listen. It was no longer his place to sing amongst the faithful, and he wanted to carry these tones with him, in his heart, when he left this place.

When the service concluded, and the worshipers filed out of the sanctuary, Sebastian remained in his pew with his head bowed. Still listening to the sounds of the sanctuary, to music only he could hear.

When the Chantry had fallen completely silent and the whispers of the sisters had faded away a shadow fell over him and he looked up to see the Grand Cleric standing there.

He nodded his head to her. "Your Grace."

"Brother Sebastian. I did not expect to see you until--"

"Until tomorrow? No, my decision is made. I only wanted to enjoy the service one last time." Brother Sebastian – no, Prince Vael now, and ever after – drew back the hood from his face. “I must ask for the rest of the day to prepare…”

“Of course.”

“But I'm glad you came to me. There are things that I wish to say, before I go..." Sebastian swallowed hard, to keep his voice steady. “My time here… it has been the best time of my life. I have learned so much more than I could ever say. And you have been so kind to me…” 

The Grand Cleric tried to interrupt, shaking her head slightly, but he held up a hand.

“I know you are only doing the Maker’s work, and I am merely a novice who could not complete his calling. But for me, you have been more of a mother than I have ever known. I thank you, Your Grace. It has been my honor to serve with you.”

“Sebastian, I hope you do not feel forced to leave,” Elthina said. Her voice remained as stiff and formal as ever, but if Sebastian had looked up at the right moment, he would have caught a hint of tears glimmering in her eyes. "We would be pleased to have you remain as one of us, if that is what you wish.”

He looked around the empty Chantry, at the hundreds of twinkling little lights, with a thoughtful frown.

“I know that. And some part of me does wish to stay. But if I did,” he admitted sadly, “it would not be for the greater glory of Andraste. It would be to shut myself away from the world. It would be for my own selfish reasons. The Maker deserves better than that.”

Elthina sat down beside him in the pew. "It is what I expected. This has never been your path, and I think I knew it all along. So long as you remember that the Maker’s light goes with you wherever you travel, you will continue to do His work.”

"I hope that will be the case, your grace."

"You have _not_ ," she said more firmly, "failed anyone. You are needed elsewhere, and you will serve Andraste in other ways. You have kept the vows completely until now, and you have done much good for Kirkwall in your time here. We have been happy, and proud, to have you with us. Do not feel you have let us down, Sebastian."

Relief flooded him at these words. For he had feared this exactly, and though he did not entirely believe her, it brought him immeasurable comfort to hear such forgiveness from the Grand Cleric.

Sebastian fixed his eyes onto the statue of Andraste at the very front of the sanctuary, speaking to her as much as to Elthina. "When I came to this place, I was so unhappy and so lost, though I did not know it. I have found peace here. Peace that I did not know was possible. I had hoped.... to give something back. If I cannot be in your service, perhaps I will find another way..."

"If your time here has given you what you need, then I am glad. It is reward enough to shelter and aid a righteous man. You need not repay us for doing the Maker's work."

Sebastian kept his eyes on Andraste's likeness. He felt that if he looked at the Grand Cleric now, his resolve would break. Leaving Elthina behind, leaving the family of the Chantry and the shelter of this home... just after losing Fenris, who he could not even think of without a stab of real grief that pierced him through. All of these losses at once.. he feared he may not be strong enough to endure it.

He drove these thoughts from his mind as best he could, pulling his cloak tighter around him and sitting up straighter on the pew, as though holding himself completely still would keep his demons at bay.  

Perhaps sensing his pain, Elthina placed her thin, small hand on the Prince's head and held it there, steadily and firmly, in a final benediction.

_"Maker bless and keep you on your journey, Sebastian Vael. May you stay on the path of righteousness.”_

A serenity descended with the priestess' blessing. It seemed to flow from her hand on his head, the touch of a not-quite-mother, of a bolstering authority, of unconditional love and acceptance. Something he had been starved of for so long, and then found himself almost pitifully grateful for.

It was time to let it go now. Sooner or later he must stand alone.

Unbidden, the Canticle of Trials called itself to mind. His lips shaped the words even as they came to him.

_Though all before me is shadow,_  
 _Yet shall the Maker be my guide._  
 _I shall not be left to wander the drifting roads of the Beyond._  
 _For there is no darkness in the Maker's Light_  
 _And nothing that He has wrought shall be lost._

He took a deep, shaky breath and slowly released it, and his worries with it.

With that Elthina withdrew her hand and left him to contemplate. Sebastian stayed for a long while, his head bowed in prayer. Then he rose, imbued with a new strength, to gather his belongings.


	16. Danger

“All right, elf,” Varric gestured for him to sit. “What’s the emergency? You look even less chipper than usual.”

Fenris had burst into Varric's suite at the Hanged Man hoping to catch him alone. Unfortunately he had found the dwarf entertaining an audience with one of his stories, and sounded nowhere near the end of it. 

A small crowd was gathered in his suite; people Fenris only vaguely recognized. Regulars at the tavern, mainly human, some elf and even a qunari, none of whom he had troubled himself to speak to in his years visiting the Hanged Man. Not that any of them had attempted it either. At some point they had mutually settled on tolerant avoidance, as a general policy. The same arrangement Fenris had negotiated in many parts of Kirkwall.

The elf settled uncomfortably onto a stool by the door, and motioned Varric to get on with his performance. "It is not... urgent. Go on with your tale." The word  _quickly,_ though not spoken, was almost certainly heard and ignored by the dwarf, who continued on for some time as Fenris waited for him impatiently.

The story involved some nonsense about the Hero of Fereldan, the Archdemon, and sex magic. Most likely two-thirds fiction, like the majority of Varric’s stories, and exactly the sort of subject matter he was in no mood for. He had no trouble tuning it out. There was enough on his mind already.

He had slept very little the past two nights. His thoughts had chased themselves around and around; memories, mostly, wrapped up in a tangle of worry and guilt. More than once he had closed his eyes to find himself in the catacombs again, remembering the terror that had gripped him there. The prince’s ashen face, the blood pouring from his wound. When he awoke it felt wrong to be so far away from him, where he could not be certain he was safe. Even now he felt physically ill.

He pushed such thoughts to the back of his mind for now. There was a more urgent matter at hand. 

His sister had arrived. She had written him. Aveline brought him the message and read it to him, and even read it through a second time, more precisely, at his insistence. Varania had not revealed where she was staying; only that she was recovering from her long journey at sea, and that she wanted to meet with him soon. She had asked where to find him, and something in it had chilled him. Reveal the place where he hid from his pursuers, to a stranger he had never (in his recollection) met before? It sounded like a trap. On the other hand, Danarius knew he had taken the manor, and anyone in league with him would surely know it too. What harm would there be, in that case, to arrange a meeting there?

Still, he did not like the idea. In the deserted mansion an army could descend without attracting notice. A public place could be safer, more likely to bring the attention of the city guard or the Templars, who surely didn't like foreign Magisters in Kirkwall any more than they did apostates. It would be better to meet her in a public place, on neutral ground. Unless Danarius meant to lure Fenris out into the open, where it would be easier to capture him? And away from the manor he would not have the traps, the dozens of escape routes, that he had prepared there in his own defense. 

Lost in such thoughts, Fenris hadn't noticed Varric bringing his tale to an end. He only looked up as the unfamiliar faces began to wander away into the taproom, leaving him alone with Varric, Isabela, and Merrill.

"Your turn, elf," Varric invited magnanimously. "You have a tale for us? I have a feeling it's a good one."

"That may depend on its conclusion," Fenris told them, "and that has not been decided yet."

To the dwarf and the pirate and, more reluctantly, Merrill, (who was comfortably ensconsed in the dwarf’s suite and had failed to follow his numerous suggestions that she should leave) he revealed his search for a long-lost sister, her arrival in Kirkwall and the possibility of a trap.      

Somewhat to his surprise, they agreed with him.

Isabela, splayed across Varric's chaise and picking at her fingernails with one of her blades, immediately spoke up. "So you're asking, are you paranoid, or is everyone out to get you, right? Could be both. Good to be prepared." She simplified matters beautifully, as usual.

"Obviously you have to meet her," Merrill pronounced with some enthusiasm. "She could be family! How exciting! Would you like us to come?"  

"I think that's what he's here for," Varric sussed out. "You'll do it at the Hanged Man, of course. It's a perfect place to..."

Varric trailed off. Suddenly everyone’s eyes looked past him, and a wave of murmurs swept the room behind them, and Fenris turned to see —

Sebastian Vael, standing in the taproom. An apparition, so far as most people there were concerned. Newly returned from the dead. Sebastian saw none of them, though. He looked past the intervening crowd and the filthy surroundings and his gaze traveled straight into the next room, where Fenris stood. He seemed strangely frozen in place. 

No sooner had their eyes met, than Sebastian turned on his heel and walked out.

Fenris for a moment could not breathe. He had a sudden and devastatingly powerful urge to chase the Prince, to stop him before the man could leave the city forever.

But what could he possibly say?  _Sebastian, I still cannot go with you to Starkhaven. Sebastian, I cannot be your knight. I wish I had not heard the Sisters gossiping, I wish you had lied to me. I wish I could still think of you as the truest friend I have ever known. Sebastian, nothing has felt right since I left your side._

But instead he watched him go, took a painfully deep breath, and turned his back.

“So,” Varric looked at him knowingly. “Choirboy’s looking well.” 

There was an awkward silence before Fenris realized they were waiting for him to speak.

“He is recovered,” Fenris said. “And he may be leaving for Starkhaven very soon. Or else taking the Chantry vows, I know not which… visiting this place implies the former.”

“You don’t know?” Merrill asked, knitting her brow together.

“I have not seen him since… the day before yesterday, I suppose.”

Isabela quirked an eyebrow. “Lover’s quarrel?”

“Quiet,” he snapped at her.

Merrill did not take the hint. “But Fenris, I thought you would go with him? The two of you have been so close…”

“I cannot,” he told her flatly, and then turned back to Varric, determined to regain control over the conversation. “The situation with my so-called sister… I can count on you? If we meet here?”

“Yeah, sure elf,” Varric said amiably. “You helped me out with my brother, I’ll happily return the favor. You think it’s a trap?”

“I think it likely to be. It seems too good to be true. While Danarius still lives, anything from Tevinter is suspect.”

Hawke appeared. They had all heard him arrive some time ago, and he took his time approaching. He had been broadcasting his presence to the common room in his usual boisterous manner all through Fenris’s worried speech. When the big man reached Varric's suite, he clapped Fenris on the shoulder, making him flinch.

“More trouble, Fenris? Big bad mages after you again?” He stroked his beard and observed them all with thoughtfulness, the way Fenris was addressing the other three, and he paused. “Wait, am I not invited to this party?”

“Of course, Hawke,” Fenris deferred immediately. “I would appreciate your aid as well, if you are willing.”

Varric sat back in his chair and assumed his most reasonable tone of voice. “We’ve got either a reunion or an ambush happening in this very spot. The Elf was giving us a heads up, seeing as how I live here and all. And Isabela. She  _sort of_  lives here, when she’s not sleeping over at la Casa Hawke.”

“Not much sleeping going on there, Varric. Though I never slept here much either. I’m not so big on sleep in general. A bit boring.” Isabela tipped the rest of her mug into her mouth.

Hawke put an arm around the pirate's shoulders and squeezed them approvingly. From there he looked back at Fenris, and a dangerous expression crossed the Champion’s face. “What about your royal boyfriend? He'll be taking a break from his holy groveling?“

“No,” the elf replied tiredly, not bothering to correct his _royal boyfriend_  comment. He would very much like for everyone to stop bringing the Starkhaven prince into every single conversation. “Sebastian will not be there.”

“Oh? What happened, did you run out on him too? His princely ardor was too much for you?”

To the surprise of everyone present, Fenris choked on his reply, grimaced, and turned crimson to the very tips of his ears.

“Wait, what? Am I right? Maker’s balls, I was only joking!”

“I…” Fenris swore at himself inwardly, knowing he had given himself away. He sank into a chair, wishing desperately to be elsewhere.

"What's this, elf?" Varric put to him incredulously. "Did you seriously hit and quit another one? I'm no fan of the Chantry boy, but tempting a celibate priest out of the order and then dumping him - I don't think even Rivaini's done that!" 

Hawke’s disbelieving expression cracked through, and he burst into laughter.

“You did it again!” he roared, and bent forward with the force of his laughs. “Oh, ho ho ho. That’s unbelievable! You pulled the same trick on Sebastian. Here I thought I was… special!” He guffawed wildly, losing entirely his ability to speak. He fell all against Isabela, who was giggling along with him.

“You think that this is _funny_?” Fenris forgot to guard his expression, and became momentarily transparent. His wounded dismay, for once, was visible to everyone.

“Finally that poncey bastard and I have something in common! We ought to start a club! Oh,” he suddenly realized, clapping a hand to his mouth, “ _that’s_  why he didn’t stop when I called a minute ago. He got out of here like all the demons of the Fade were chasing him. Wouldn’t even look at me, poor sod.” Hawke shook his head and laughed again, his shoulders shaking with mirth.

“Oh Hawke, I don’t think that’s very funny at all,” Merrill said, with a concerned look. She put a hand on Fenris’s arm, not even minding that he immediately jerked away. “Obviously this is very painful for the both of them.”

“Well at least  _now_  I know it really  _wasn’t_  my fault! ” Hawke doubled over again, laughing.

Fenris stared at the floor, unable to meet anyone’s eye. He wanted to bolt for the door, but seemed to be rooted to the spot. He said to his onetime lover in a low voice, “I had hoped you were not still angry with me for leaving.”

Hawke wiped tears away from his eyes, still guffawing. “I was never angry at you, you dunce… I was _hurt_. You never did get that part, did you?”

Fenris forced himself to look up. “That — that was never my intention…”

“Oh Fenris,” Hawke said, not smiling anymore. “You just can’t help yourself, can you?”

The look on his face, suddenly sympathetic, and a bit sad, was far worse than the laughter.

Fenris flinched, and was on his feet in a moment. He stormed angrily out of the room, through the tavern and out the front, shoving several people off their feet on his way. 

The heavy door banged loudly behind him as he charged blindly into the dark streets, his face still burning with humiliation.

They didn't understand. None of them understood. 

Frustration propelled him forward without any clear idea of where he was going. Wandering Lowtown alone at night was generally unwise, but he half hoped he would run into trouble. It would give him something to hit.

If they had any idea what it cost him to push away any chance at happiness with both hands they could not find it funny. It  _hurt_. The very thing he wanted, that (if he were truly honest) he craved, abraised him like sandpaper to his skin. It felt wrong and dangerous and it trapped him inside himself with no way out.

If he'd known it would end this way he would not have tried. He had not  _wanted_  to hurt Hawke or Sebastian. He did not  _want_  to be like this. Who would want to be like this?

_Sebastian would not have laughed._

That thought did not help. It only reminded him that he had brought pain to the one person who might have understood, if he had tried to explain it. It seemed impossible to explain something he did not understand himself, but perhaps he should have at least tried.

He could not have explained himself to Hawke. Hawke was not the sort of man who would sit still long enough for you to get the words together. He was the sort who would jump in and finish your sentences, and before you knew it you were saying something you hadn’t meant to say at all.

He was the sort of man who, in the heat of the moment, might spring on a spark of lust and turn it into a forest fire, and before you knew quite what was happening, he was falling to his knees and pulling off your trousers and doing unspeakably wonderful things with his mouth until every bit of the Common language fell right out of your head. Including words like  _wait_ , and _slow down_ , and _stop._ And by the time he was done you would do anything he asked of you, anything at all, including things you had sworn never to do again. 

In the end he found himself a used and sullied object, as he had ever been. It hadn't mattered that it was Hawke, a good and worthy person, or that he had wanted it. The result was the same. How could he explain that to Hawke?

Hawke would not understand that it frightened him how easily he had given in. He had utterly surrendered himself, seemingly at a moment's notice. Did it really take so little? Was he so weak-willed? 

He could not talk to Hawke, he never could. 

But Sebastian… he had always been easy to talk with. He listened, and was patient, and did not push for any more than Fenris was ready to reveal. Yet he did not feel coddled, or condescended to. The prince had somehow made it seem worth his while to wait for whatever he was willing to tell him.

Fenris slowed, trudging somewhat miserably now up the stairs to Hightown. He should have stayed and talked to the man. The instinct to run from danger had pushed him out the door before he could think twice. And it was dangerous, what he had seen in Sebastian's face. An unfamiliar danger, something new. Something he had known all along but been unable to acknowledge or name. Sebastian had called it love, and now they could ignore it no longer.

And what did Fenris know about love?

He knew he had hurt Hawke, and hurt Sebastian too. He knew he was unworthy of either of them. 

He must find a way to set things right with Sebastian. He deserved that, at least. Even if he could not give him what he wanted, he owed it to the prince to tell him that his problems had very little to do with him, that it wasn't his fault. In point of fact the very idea that Sebastian would even consider... Well, if he had not been a broken man, perhaps... Oh, the very thought of it tied his stomach in knots, perhaps he would leave this last bit out. He would tell Sebastian _something_ to try to take back the hurt he had caused, he knew not what. With any luck the man would understand him, despite his confusion, much as he always had.

He should do it as soon as possible. Sebastian would be preparing to leave the city for Starkhaven any day now, and Fenris's own future was very much in doubt at the moment. It could be that if he waited even one more day, the two of them would never see one another again. 

Fenris sped his climb to Hightown. Perhaps someone at the Chantry would know where he had gone, how to find him, before it was too late.


	17. Meetings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to my incredibly helpful beta Apocalisse

Sebastian Vael sat fidgeting in a crowded room of the Blooming Rose, the bust of Andraste shining disapprovingly from the belt of his gleaming white armour.

He had never realized how many rooms the Rose had. Besides the taproom and the infamous bedchambers there were elaborate sitting rooms, libraries, parlors with musical instruments, and dining halls. These too were available for a price, and with no questions asked. Gatherings of guardsmen and templars were as likely as coterie feasts and secret political meetings; if the coin was good, the space was yours.   
  
For all his years in Kirkwall, Sebastian had never ventured beyond the entryway. This place was home to every sort of vice available, including many that he had been well-familiar with in a previous life. Prudence had demanded he avoid an establishment of such enthusiastic temptations, and he had managed to wait outside whenever Hawke and his companions had done business here. But since it was the last place anyone would expect to find him, it would be the perfect location for tonight’s meeting.

The previous day, as soon as he had decided on his course, he had sent messengers to his supporters in Kirkwall. He did it quietly, as he could not be certain the Crows had withdrawn completely from Kirkwall. From those few messages the gathering had grown quickly. Many new faces had been brought along by his core supporters to attend this clandestine meeting, in which he would appeal to them for aid in his campaign to regain Starkhaven. These new face came from noble families, and many of them he recognized from the Chantry. But some were unknown to him completely, and he could not begin to guess what they might have come for. Perhaps out of curiosity, if nothing else.

"Thank you for coming," he began, clearing his throat awkwardly. In preparation he had tried to recall the sorts of things his father would say in such situations. Mostly he remembered his father giving orders, and people scrambling to fulfill them. By the time Sebastian had been old enough to understand such things, his father had never needed to take charge; it was always already his. He wished now that he could have seen how his father had earned the respect he so obviously commanded. It would certainly have been of use tonight.  
  
"We gather here today as friends of Starkhaven," he spoke out, his voice filling the room with practiced ease. It seemed his Chanter’s training would be useful to him still. "Our city was once one of the greatest cities in the world! A home to learned men, to philosophers and inventors, to architects and artists. Once we had wealth and power unparalleled in the Free Marches. We stood at the borders of Antiva and Tevinter and remained unconquered by both. One city against two empires and we prevailed. We repelled Qunari invaders, and turned back the Second Blight."  
  
More confidently now, Sebastian lifted his face and his blue eyes shone in the firelight.  "That was when a Vael sat the throne, as we have done for hundreds of years. Until the usurpers killed the rightful ruler, and placed a puppet on the throne - the weak and malleable Goran Vael, who even now is marrying into the very family that destroyed us. They say the last of the Vaels are dead, and the wealth of Starkhaven is gone. But they lie! The riches of the Royal Palace are hoarded by the usurpers even as the people they rule starve and the city falls to decay. And the rightful heir to the throne of Starkhaven is alive and well, and I am he."  
  
A single cheer broke out in the room, from the enthusiastic Lord Graeme, but no other voices joined him and he quickly sputtered into silence. Sebastian had not won the room just yet. He searched their faces as he continued.  
  
“When I regain my throne, there will be changes. I will open the royal treasury, and use it to rebuild the parts of the city that have fallen into disrepair. I will restore the Great Gates and repave our streets. I will reopen trade with Ferelden, whose young King will need our wheat and our timber as they recover from their Blight. I will reconnect with Orlais, and regain the favor of the Divine. The Usurper and his puppet-masters have turned their backs on Andraste, but I will restore the Chantry to its rightful place, and build a new cathedral to rival the one here in Kirkwall.”  
  
Each one of these proposals was met with increasing nods of approval, but there was still some grumbling among the participants.  
  
Sebastian brought out his real lure. “Most importantly, I will encourage all of our citizens who have left Starkhaven in these troubled times, as our wealth has been squandered and our fortunes uncertain, to return to their ancestral home. I will enable all of you to regain your family properties and retake your rightful place in the royal court. And for those of you who choose to return with me who may not have had a place in the Vael court, I will make a place for you at my side.”  
  
Finally he was met with applause. As he had suspected, only now did he find real enthusiasm in these potential supporters.  Improving the lot of the poor was all well and good, but Sebastian was painfully aware that to these wealthy citizens the promise of influence and property would be a far stronger incentive.  
  
The prince had to grit his teeth for this. He had not missed the machinations of court politics that he had grown up with in Starkhaven, and if he had to be utterly honest with himself, they were a large part of why he had been reluctant to return there. But one could not run a city without them, and he would need these people on his side. He would be preparing a nest of vipers for himself, but there was no other way.     
  
“And what will you need from us?” Lord Graeme prompted, drawing Sebastian out of these unhappy thoughts.  
  
"What we need most," he had to admit, "is funding. The Vael fortune is vast, but at the moment I am completely cut off from it. The people who murdered my family and usurped the throne of Starkhaven have denied me access to my family’s land and fortunes, hoping that this will keep me from returning. Once I have regained my place, I will happily reward all of my supporters.”  
  
“But will you not also need troops, for the war...?” an unfamiliar voice suggested. At the word, the room grew abuzz with whispering and quiet but heated argument.  
  
"I do not anticipate a war, nor would I wish for one," Sebastian told them firmly, quieting his audience. "I will not battle my own people if there is any way to avoid it! Once I arrive in the city I believe I can take the throne back with very little bloodshed. The difficulty will be in approaching. Already an attempt has been made on my life, and I must expect more of the same. They will stop at nothing to prevent my reaching Starkhaven."  
  
"Then you will need an army," a worried-looking woman put in.  
  
"A guard, of sorts. There is strength in numbers. I will need scouts, and people to run ahead and spread word of my approach. If we are attacked, we will defend ourselves, but I will do everything I can to avoid unnecessary deaths. I will not ask your sons to die for me, Madam. Only to believe in me, for a little while."  
  
A grey-bearded man spoke up, his resonant voice ringing out over the gathering from his chair in the corner. "That is admirable, if naive. Perhaps you can keep the fighting brief, but there will be a fight, make no mistake. Have you no army to march on the city? You will have little chance without it, and the people of Starkhaven are unlikely to join a losing battle.”  
  
Sebastian swallowed. Of course this had been exactly his problem, a battle to fight and no army to fight it with. But he musn’t admit as much, when he so desperately needed their support. No one would want to be the first to stick their necks out.  
  
“Funding will secure those forces, Serrah. I have followers enough to lead them...” Here he paused, and with an effort cleared the thought of Fenris from his mind. Fenris, who he had always imagined leading his forces, who no longer wanted anything to do with him. But he could not think on that now.  
  
“Hirelings,” the bearded man broke in skeptically.  
  
“Any army must be paid,” Sebastian spoke over him, “whether conscripts or professionals. Once funding is secured I will gather the best fighters available, wherever I might find them. Yes, I would take an experienced mercenary over a green manor-born lad. In the end I expect I’ll have some of both.”  
  
The robed stranger grew quiet then, and the room buzzed with talk of Sebastian’s recent adventures with a band of mercenaries, one that included the well-respected Champion of Kirkwall. If such skilled fighters could be gathered for these minor exploits, who might he find for his greater campaign?  
  
Sebastian stretched out his hands to calm the room one last time. “I will let you all consider amongst yourselves. Tomorrow I march for Tantervale, to muster the remainder of my troops. You can find me at the Chantry courtyard before the sun sets. I will accept your tributes there. If any men wish to march with me - you, your household, or any under your banner - you will be welcomed. Thank you.”  
  
Much of what followed was a blur. Sebastian sat down to conclude his speech but was immediately hauled back to his feet by a parade of outstretched hands. He was introduced to people with phrases like “grandson to the cousin of your uncle Ferdinand” and “proud descendant of the squire to General Wiesting”, and set their names to memory by all the old tricks: Lady Faphner has a Fox fur, young Ser Rodrick’s red nose, and so forth.  
  
Yet no one introduced him to the grey-bearded man he had noted earlier, the one whose long fingers folded together on the table in front of him, who observed the room with eyes the color of a thunderstorm. The prince could feel those eyes following him around the room from his solitary corner, but the stranger made no move to approach him. When his receiving line slowed, Sebastian excused himself, curiosity finally overtaking him.  
  
He walked to the man’s table, where he sat smoking a long pipe and unblinkingly tracking his approach.  
  
“Good evening, Serrah,” Sebastian inclined his head. “I don’t believe we have been introduced?”  
  
He exhaled, an elegant puff of smoke that curled around his slim shoulders and vanished. “Do we need an introduction, young Sebastian?”  
  
Sebastian’s relaxed expression hardened at this, his gaze growing sharp. “You may call me Prince Vael, Serrah. And since I do not know you, an introduction would be only polite.”  
  
The bearded human smiled at him, a kindly expression. “I’m sorry, lad, if I have been rude in my informal address. I did not mean any insult. It is only that you look so like your father, and he will always be Prince Vael to me.”  
  
“You knew my father?” The archer thawed considerably at this, sitting down across from the stranger. A nobleman, surely, though no one that Sebastian could remember. His clothes were very fine, as was his manner; patrician, well-bred, and well-accustomed to being listened to and obeyed.  
  
“Oh yes. I crossed his hearth many times, many years ago. The grand Lord and Lady of Starkhaven, and their dashing strong sons. I ate at their table, and they drank my wine. A lovely family, and a powerful one. I learned much in the rule of men from their example. I believe you were merely a boy then, not tall enough to see over this table. A scruffy lad with big blue eyes.”  
  
The strange man smiled and something in it sent a shiver down Sebastian’s spine, though he could not think why.  
  
“Here,” he produced from within his robes a worn and creased letter, with the seal of Starkhaven clearly visible and long broken through. This was an old commission, but one he has kept. “It has been many years since I last did business with your father, but I pay my debts. If my support would aid you in your campaign, I will swear loyalty to you.”  
  
Sebastian hesitated. “I am afraid I do not remember you, my lord.”  
  
The letter disappeared into his fine robes unopened. “As I said, you were very young when last I slept beneath your father’s roof. He was my patron, then, and I merely an apprentice. But that was twenty years ago, and all our fortunes have changed since then, haven’t they? Now he is dead of treachery, and I am a magister.”  
  
Sebastian's mouth suddenly went dry, and he became very aware of the blood pounding in his ears.  
  
“… A magister?”  
  
“Yes, a sort of Lord in Tevinter. My name is Danarius. Perhaps you have heard of me?”  
  
The magister’s dry, cracked lips twisted into a confident smile.  
  
For a moment Sebastian could not reply. His mouth opened and no sound would come out of it.  
  
Danarius. Fenris's former master, the man who kept him in chains. The man who has pursued him all these years, who had tormented him and leashed him like a dog.  
  
The prince’s hands twisted into fists beneath the table.  
  
“Tevinter? You have come a long way, my lord,” he managed to say. “Surely you have not traveled to Kirkwall on my behalf...”  
  
“I have some business here, important business. But I expect it will be concluded tomorrow, and then I can offer you my services.”  
  
 _Business. That could only be Fenris. Isn’t Fenris’s sister arriving soon? Has he followed her?_  
  
His pulse raced faster as his thoughts whirled. _Does he know? Does he know that I know of him? That I know Fenris? It would not be hard to learn. Could this be some kind of trap?_  
  
Sebastian took a deep breath and fought to keep his voice steady. “I plan to march tomorrow, as I said. What sort of aid could you offer?”  
  
“The kind you most need. Whatever you may say, you cannot possibly expect to take Starkhaven without an army. Now, I have with me a number of able men who I can easily spare once my business here is concluded. You may take them into your service, for as long as you need them.” He puffed another smoky blast from his pipe, this one curling seductively in the air between them. “I myself have some magical ability, as all magisters must. But I am a little old for marching, I’m afraid. I will be sailing back to Tevinter from here. But perhaps I could join you at Starkhaven, if you have need of a mage.”  
  
 _Sailing to Tevinter... leaving his men behind... once his business is concluded. When he has recaptured Fenris._  
  
Sebastian’s clenched hands began to shake from the force required to keep them still and in his lap, and not around the throat of the man sitting opposite him. Oh, he wanted to kill this man as he has never wanted to hurt another living being. He wanted to twist his neck around until his head popped off like a child’s toy.  
  
Danarius spoke again, lowering his voice this time. A throaty tone, a cat’s purr. “You will also need advisors, lad, both now and once you regain your throne. Let me give you some advice now. Choosing the time and the place of your battles is the most important decision of all. Never let another man make that choice for you. One day that will make the difference between life and death.”  
  
The prince stared into that grey, hypnotic gaze, unable to look away.  
  
 _He knows_ , he thought. _He must know._  
  
Torn between the urge to murder him on the spot and the equally desperate urge to warn Fenris of danger as quickly as possible, Sebastian found himself unable to do anything but watch helplessly as Danarius put out his pipe and nodded to him.  
  
“A great pleasure to see you again, young Prince Vael. Remember what I have said. We shall speak again soon, you and I.”  
  
Danarius stood. He made a tall and imposing figure in his long robes, and as he stepped away he spared not a single glance for anyone in the room, entirely unafraid to turn his back to the Prince. So smoothly did he stride away that Sebastian’s eyes darted to his feet, to see that they touched the ground and he did not in fact float several inches above the floor.  
  
Then he was gone, and for a moment Sebastian could only sigh in relief. A weight he had not realized had settled over his chest lifted, and he realized now how terrified he had been of the magister, how he had dreaded his every word.  
  
When he had recovered enough to stand, Sebastian left his own meeting without saying goodbye to anyone. He had somehow forgotten all of his plans and duties that had so consumed him these last few days. There were still others waiting for his attention, more outstretched hands for him to shake, but Sebastian no longer saw them. All he could think was that he had seen Fenris not two hours ago in the Hanged Man, and with any luck he may still be there. Never mind that he had turned and fled at the sight of him then - Fenris must be warned. Maker only knows what Danarius was planning now, but his presence in Kirkwall could only mean terrible danger.  
  
*********************************************  
  
Only minutes later the Prince emerged from the Blooming Rose and broke into a run. He had to find Fenris right away. As much as his broken heart pained him he could not bear the thought of Fenris being caught unawares by his former master. For him to be hurt or killed, or Maker forbid dragged back to Tevinter, would be the worst disaster imaginable.  
  
Incredibly, no sooner had he turned the corner away from the Red Lantern district than he collided directly with Fenris.  
  
The two men met abruptly as the elf came rushing down the stairs and Sebastian turned the corner and began jogging up them. In the same moment they brought up their hands to push the obstacle aside, but the added surprise of seeing _exactly the one they were looking for_ threw the both of them off balance.  
  
The two men sat down hard on the stairs in a clamour of clanking armor and red faces, startled and pleased and embarrassed to find each other there.  
  
Fenris had a rare grin on his face as he helped Sebastian to his feet. "You... I had hoped to find you here. This is... incredibly fortunate."  
  
He had been in such a panic to find the warrior it had never once occurred to him that the elf might be trying to find _him_. Momentarily distracted, Sebastian stumbled over the announcement he had been rehearsing. The entrancing, endearingly awkward smile on the elf's face had unmanned him completely. "You hoped to find me.. here?"  
  
Fenris brushed the dirt from the prince's sleeves, a gesture he had begun to make during his convalescence. "Well... of course. The sisters of the Chantry said you would meet with your supporters, and what better place than--"  
  
"-- the last place anyone would look," the archer finished for him. "You know me all too well, Fenris."  
  
The elf smiled wider. "I was afraid I would not find you in time," he explained in a great rush. "Before you leave the city. I need... I need to speak with you. I need to explain..."  
  
"Stop." Quickly Sebastian put up his hand to his friend's chest, motioning him to be quiet. He did so with great reluctance, for he knew that the news he had to tell him would remove the smile from his face as though it had never been there, and he wanted more than anything to enjoy the sight of it a little bit longer. If the situation had been only a little less urgent, he would have been inclined to hear what Fenris had to say, in the hopes it would somehow restore their friendship. But he knew that nothing could be more urgent than this.  
  
"My friend, I'm afraid I have something to tell you first, before you say anything else, as much as I’d like to hear it. Fenris, I have news. Danarius is here."  
  
Fenris _changed_. The light in his eyes extinguished immediately, and his open expression snapped shut like a curtain as he fell back from him, one step and then another, into the wary stance he assumed before battle. All the pleasure of finding one another again in friendship was gone in a moment.  
  
" _Where_ ," Fenris hissed.  
  
Sebastian’s hand remained suspended in midair, in the very place where he had been touching it to his chest, and beseeched the elf to remain calm. "Inside the Rose. I saw him myself."  
  
"Are you certain it was him?" he spat, as though to a stranger. His eyes darted up and down the street warily and avoided his face, and all the warmth of a moment ago was gone. The completeness of the change made the prince's skin prickle in alarm and dread.  
  
"Yes. He introduced himself to me."  
  
Fenris suddenly jerked his head to glare at him, and the prince's heart stuttered in his chest. How would he react, to hear that his former master had known Sebastian's father? That he had played at his feet, as a boy? The shame of it burned in his face, surely visible to anyone even in the dark of the Red Lantern district.  
  
"He planted himself amongst the nobles at your meeting," Fenris said, and he was not speaking to Sebastian. He was putting it together. "Spying on you!"  
  
"I suppose, yes..." Sebastian answered him quickly. "But as soon as I realized... I made some excuse and I left. To look for you."  
  
For the first time since the dreaded name had been spoken, Fenris seemed to really see Sebastian. "You were leaving to warn me," he said thoughtfully.  
  
Now there was no reason to mention what else Danarius had said; it would only upset him further.  
  
"Fenris, we must gather the others. Hawke could still be in Varric's suite at the Hanged Man, and even if he’s not... we could easily rouse them all before morning."  
  
"There is no time." His murderous gaze swung up to the lighted windows of the Rose, and a screeching issued from the fists at his sides as his gauntlets ground together. "We know where he is. By morning he could be gone. I must find him now."  
  
Curse his stubbornness. It was irrational to chase after the magister without a plan, without allies. He had to convince the elf to wait for reinforcements. "Fenris -- "  
  
"I will not let him slip away from me again!"  
  
"Fenris, be reasonable--"  
  
"Sebastian." Now it was Fenris who reached out to touch him, his hand grasping his shoulder. He took a deep, shaky breath, obviously struggling to calm himself. "I thank you for the warning. I... have never known a friend such as you." His head bowed, battling emotions playing across his features. Sebastian ached at the sight, the fear and the rage and the hint of vulnerability he so rarely displayed. Fenris squeezed his shoulder without meeting his eyes. "Go and find Hawke, with my gratitude."  
  
Sebastian sucked in a breath. "I will not. I will not leave you to do this alone."  
  
"You must." The elf's green eyes just became visible beneath the fringe of his hair. "I need you to do this. Go and find help."  
  
He shook his head vehemently. He could be stubborn too. "No. No, Fenris, let me come with you. Let me stand at your side. You don't have to face him alone. Please," he added, all the pain in his heart pouring into the word.  
  
The warrior's eyes became liquid, they beseeched him mercilessly. "I... you are still wounded. I would not see you harmed by Danarius. That would be... I cannot imagine anything worse for me, than for you to suffer at his hands. Do you understand?" He blinked furiously now, his voice unsteady. "Go. Go as far from here as you can."  
  
"I will not," Sebastian insisted, his own voice breaking. "I'll follow you in. You can't stop me. I won't let you go alone. I'll -- If you come with me, if we get a party together, it will take no more than an hour, and I promise then that I will stay behind, if you insist. Just don't go in alone, Fenris, please."  
  
The elf shook his head back and forth, thinking hard. He didn't know what to do. "I cannot wait. I cannot-- why must you make everything so _difficult_?!"  
  
Sebastian stepped closer, leaning his head forward to rest against his. Fenris accepted this weight with a sigh, and for a moment they stood like this, their foreheads pressed together. It was a strange and intimate gesture, but one that felt right in this fraught moment. The prince could hear the rapid hiss of Fenris's breathing, hard and fast, could feel the adrenaline pounding through the elf's body, so close to his. His friend sounded as though he had run the length of the city, the way he breathed.  
  
Sebastian slowly understood, without needing to ask, what he felt. Everything would be decided tonight. All his life, his time in slavery, his years as a fugitive, had lead to this night, this moment. His goal was so close at hand that he could not tolerate any delay.  
  
"I must go now," Fenris insisted quietly. "It cannot wait. I have waited so long already, defended myself from slavers, watched for traps and attacks every single day for all these years... I cannot wait any longer."  
  
"And I can't leave you," Sebastian whispered. _Because I love you,_ he finished to himself, but he did not say it aloud.  
  
The elf turned to look up at the Rose, removing himself from the prince's touch. He watched the windows for a while, as though imagining his master within, - where he might be, what he may be doing. He played the possibilities out silently in his head, grimacing at their result.  
  
"Fine," he said slowly. "Fine. If you insist, you will come inside with me. But," he swung around to glare at him seriously, "you must do as I ask you."  
  
"Of course."  
  
"No matter what. Do you swear it?"  
  
"On my life," Sebastian promised him sincerely.  
  
"Then... follow me."


	18. Demolition

Fenris scanned the lobby of the Blooming Rose, searching for his former master. Disappointment brought a scowl to his face as the elf realized this would not be as easy as he had hoped. Even at this time of night, the Rose was full of Marchers off their work - guardsmen, soldiers, templars, miners, even some darktown scroungers who had scraped together the coin. Some were here to drink, some to hire a brothel worker, and some simply to pass the off-time before they found their beds, and all of them were in Fenris’s way.

The elf jerked his head from side to side, grimacing. This would make the task of finding Danarius even more difficult. He could be in any of these sitting rooms, or mingled into the crowd right here in the lobby, and if the magister saw them first their ambush would be ruined. Worse, any of these people could be the magister’s spies or soldiers, ready to apprehend him at any time. He needed to locate Danarius as quickly as possible without raising any alarm.

He could hear Sebastian staying close at his heels as Fenris pushed his way through the lobby, shoving aside anyone in his way and ignoring their yelps of anger and surprise. There was no time for politeness, and anyway he was in no mood. Anyone who may have liked to shove him back after spilling their beer down their shirts thought better of it when they saw the murderous expression on his face and the threatening glimmer of his lyrium brands through his spiky leather armor.

Focused as he was on searching for the robed figure of Danarius, he paid little attention to his companion. Suddenly he realized the prince had disappeared - he was no longer trailing noisily behind Fenris, and there was no sign of him to either side. Just an indistinguishable host of sweaty, noisy humans everywhere the elf looked - curse him, where had he wandered off to now?

Then Fenris heard his sonorous voice rising above the crowd. “Madam, excuse me,” her made out clearly, in the direction of the bar. ”I must apologize for disturbing your work. The Tevinter gentleman who attended my meeting - we need to speak with him. I believe he is staying here?”

Fenris headed to the bar to collect his companion, ready to chide him for wasting their time. But the barmaid at the far end was nodding, looking amused at the formal address (the one Prince Vael always used, the elf knew, no matter who he spoke to). “Grey beard?” she was saying, gesturing upwards with her left hand to indicate a figure of imposing height. “He’s upstairs.”

Fenris stepped hastily in front of his human friend, barking out a reply. “Yes. Him. Which room?”

The curly-haired human blinked at his command, and then looked inquiringly at Sebastian, who nodded and smiled apologetically. _Yes, the rude elf is with me._  Then she jerked a thumb over her shoulder. “Turn right at the top of the stairs, last room on the left. He’s paid up to next week, but he never tips, and something about him gives me the creeps.”

Fenris heard only the first part, the last trailing into the distance as he raced for the stairs. He swept through a barricade of barely-clothed women who scattered at the sight of him and took the steps two at a time, adrenaline propelling him forward with little effort. Soon he could hear Sebastian pounding the stairs behind him, his pristine armor clanking in its familiar way. It was good he had come, Fenris reflected, his inquiry would save them having to search through every room in turn. It came to the elf in a flash that he would never have thought to ask the barmaids for assistance. He had not even noted her existence as he passed by, unlike Sebastian, who noticed everyone.

But this was no time for introspection - Danarius was waiting, and his hands itched to draw his sword.

They topped the stairs and rounded the corner, and Fenris spotted the room. The door stood closed and darkened, with no guards outside, though visitors and employees wandered freely all along the hallways.

Sebastian put a hand to his shoulder, lightly. “What’s the plan?” he asked at a whisper, just behind his ear.

Reflexively he shrugged the hand away. He was far too tense to be comforted at the moment. “I go in and kill him,” he said shortly, and continued before Sebastian could cut in. “No time for plans. I have only surprise on my side. If I act quickly I will need nothing else.”

“You have me,” Sebastian reminded him quietly.

Fenris pointed to the open door nearby. “You will wait there. Do not argue with me - Danarius will have reinforcements near at hand and I will need you to keep them out until I have finished with him. Can you handle that much?”

He heard an unpleasant note creeping into the tone of his command and could not stop it. He must not be cruel to Sebastian and he could not stop himself. It was the fear doing it, the fear and the anger that always followed it. Fenris hated, _hated_ to be afraid, and it made him mean.

Sebastian did not blanch at the ugly tone. It seemed to brush past without touching him. And though Fenris could not bring himself to look him in the face, he could see at the corner of his vision that prince was smiling at him, and his eyes were kind. “I will do my best, my friend. As much as I would like to stand at your side to face the magister... Well, frankly I would like very much to put an arrow into his throat, but I will do as you ask. It is a good strategy. I will not let you down.”

“I know.” Fenris studied the floor, his hair shielding him from the Prince’s intense blue gaze. “Thank you,” he added, sincerely. Then he turned and walked alone down the hall.

His steps measured the distance heavily. He had waited so long. It had been nearly ten years since he had fled his master, and much of that time he had been searching for a way to enact his vengence. Now it was here - one way or another, tonight, it would all be over. It should be a relief. After all the searching, the hunters at his heels, Hadriana dead at his hands, after living in this long shadow for so many years, he would finally be rid of his master or else die in the attempt.

Fenris paused at the door, gathering himself.

He could not explain the depth of his fear. Danarius’s magic, though potent, was surely not so much stronger than the many mages he had faced since his escape. The magister had once been to him as powerful as a god, more terrible and mighty than the archon himself, but he had been a slave then, and ignorant besides. He had known no better. If he had ever tried to fight back, perhaps his Master would have lasted no longer than any Kirkwall mage that had fallen at his hands since then. If he had only had the courage to do so perhaps he would have killed him long ago.

… Perhaps. But a magister was more dangerous than any common apostate. And Danarius had created the lyrium brands that Fenris used to cut other mages down, and he had trained him to fight. His usual tricks would not work. To defeat him the Lyrium warrior would have to be better than he had ever been. He was not certain that he could do it.

Still, should he die fighting him, at least he would not die a slave. He should have told Sebastian this, he realized, in case he did fail. He should have spoken with him more before they came in. If he turned back... No, his thoughts were going in circles, he could not trust them. If he thought on this much more he might flee and lose his only chance for revenge.

The real danger, he knew, would be the magister’s words. In truth he feared the man’s voice more than his magic. That voice had left scars deeper even than the lyrium in his skin, scars he was only beginning to uncover.

Fenris held his fingers to the door, preparing to push it open. He could not see a light around the frame. Perhaps Danarius would be asleep. If he could only cut his throat before he could utter a single word. It would take away the satisfaction of defeating him in open combat, but in that way he would not have to hear his voice again.

Fenris looked back. He could see Sebastian watching him from his own door, silently. The Prince gave him a nod of encouragement, and held his bow at the ready. If he gave the word, the archer would accompany him to face his former master; of that he had no doubt.

Somehow that knowledge strengthened him, even though he would not give that order. He would leave Sebastian here to guard his back, the one and only of all the people in the world that he would trust there. The unbearably handsome, valiant Prince, back straight and eyes clear, stood ready to defend him - him, a fugitive former slave. How in the world had he gotten so lucky? Fenris had never been more grateful for the presence of another man in his life. If this would be the last thing he would see as a free man, it was a worthy sight. Sebastian’s blue eyes.

Fenris managed a faint smile.

Then he turned back to the door, and pushed.

************************************************************

Silently the door swung open and the elf stepped cautiously into the chamber, easing the door shut behind him. Though dim, the room was not completely dark, and he blinked quickly, scanning. The great canopied bed hung in the center of the room like a shadow, but beyond it on the far side of the room a candle flickered on a table, where a man sat writing. Though he sat turned to the wall Fenris could identify him immediately, with a jolt of recognition - having lived constantly at his side for over ten years the shape of Danarius remained as familiar to the elf as his own.

Fenris lifted his sword. A stuttering breath lodged in his throat that he could not seem to swallow, strongly as a spell designed to smother him, though he knew it was no magic but only his own terror. He forced himself to take a step forward. He must act before the magister realized he was here.

The magister shifted in his chair slightly, the creaking of wood joining the scratching of his quill as the only sound in the room. Fenris held perfectly still until the creaking ceased, and then eased forward.

“There you are,” the human said mildly into the wall, and Fenris froze in place.

The magister did not speak loudly - he never did - but somehow his voice cut through the room like a blade. He did not turn, and as silently as Fenris had entered the room it was not clear how he had perceived him approaching. The mage dipped his quill in an inkwell with a fussy and exacting gesture and continued to write, unperturbed.

“I expected you sooner,” he said.  “My messenger must have been slow. You did run straight to me as soon as you heard, didn’t you, my little wolf?”

The sound of that voice, after so many years, shook him deeply. Fenris clutched the pommel of his sword tighter, as though the magister’s words could pull it from his grip, and stepped further into the room. So much for surprise. “Your messenger?” he growled in a low voice.

The magister’s dry thin lips curled into a smile. He did not answer Fenris’s question. Instead he lifted the red burning candle from the desk with a pale elegant hand and carefully dripped the wax onto the paper. It congealed against the parchment into a tiny blood-colored pool. With deliberation the magister loosened his signet ring and, holding it by the knuckle, slowly pressed it into the red wax and held it there firmly. When he lifted his hand, an ornate "D" had been flawlessly imprinted in the cooling seal, and he brushed any stray residue from the ring as he replaced it on his finger.  Then Danarius turned his face away from the light and towards the intruder, and though the elf was surely only a shadow in the dim light he seemed to see him quite clearly.

“Oh, my dear boy,” he chided, with what sounded for all the world like genuine concern. “You do look a mess. Has no one cared for your lyrium in all this time?”

Fenris leaped, running full speed at the magister, and crashed into an invisible barrier as solid and hard as steel. Staggered, he stumbled back, and right away charged forward again, determined to get through. He attempted to phase his swordarm through the barrier and met with shattering pain up to the shoulder. His hand passed through, but the pain was too great. A second longer and he would drop his sword.

He fell back, and rolled sideways into the shadows. All of this took only moments, just long enough for the magister to quirk an eyebrow at the attempt to overpower his barrier, and nod, without otherwise moving a single muscle. 

Fenris was left crouching behind the bed with his sword at the ready. The magister had known he was coming, and had prepared. The room crackled with magical defenses, with wards and enchantments of protection. No matter; Fenris could deal with such things now. Even the greatest mage could not maintain a barrier forever. He would only have to wait for the opportunity to strike.  

Danarius watched the elf select a defensible position in the room and chuckled darkly, folding his hands in front of him. “So frightened you are...” he said, soothingly, as one might to a wild animal he intends to tame. “I am sorry, my little wolf, that it has taken me so long to collect you. I have had other pressing matters to attend to, and you have proved more capable than I expected. I should have known better than to send other men to handle my mistakes.”

The magister’s voice had a hypnotic quality. The more he spoke, the more Fenris wished to listen, and began to relax. _No_ , he told himself firmly,  _do not talk to him and do not listen_. 

The magister kept speaking to him, in a kindly-seeming voice, a fatherly smile on his face. “I did teach you, didn’t I, that a brothel is a fine place to stay. When you have the coin, of course. They are built for comfort in a way an inn would never be. Even if one does not partake in their particular pleasures.” Danarius smirked, scanning the room under lowered lids. “You know, I had half-expected to find you here already, amongst the whores. We survive by what talents we have, and yours are... considerably limited.”

“Shut up,” Fenris growled through clenched teeth, unable to ignore the jibe.

“You are so predictable, my pet. I knew you would rush to my side at once, unable to stop yourself. Without even a plan of attack, trusting your instincts to guide you through. You need a strong hand for guidance, little wolf, and you always have. Without it, you are entirely at the mercy of your emotions, emotions you barely even comprehend.”

 _Do not listen,_ Fenris admonished himself.He wished fervently now that he had listened to Sebastian, gathered his companions, that he had at least brought Hawke. Hawke would have imagined a sneaky plan. He would have had snappy rejoinders to every one of the magister’s pronouncements. Hawke would not have been afraid. He conjured in his mind the most comforting voice he could imagine to try to drown him out while he considered his next move. 

 _You have me._  Sebastian’s gentle brogue broke through the stream of Danarius’s words.  _I will not let you down._

Fenris holds to this, keeping his head bent down and out of sight, and watches the shadow of the magister stand and stretch across the room.

“And now you regret rushing to me so hastily, without reinforcements. That’s what has kept you out of my reach for so long, that party of mercenaries you have convinced to take you in. Alone, you have no hope for survival. You know it, deep down - that you are nothing without your master here to guide you.”

“I have no master,” Fenris found himself saying, rather unpersuasively.

“That’s not what I was told.” The shadow moves closer. Though Fenris could not see the magister’s face, he could hear the smirk in his voice. Danarius was enjoying this, enjoying it very much. He rolled the words over his tongue with relish, knowing exactly how deeply they would cut. “Did you not devote yourself as soon as possible to another man’s direction? Did you not draw your sword on his behalf? And did you not also fall into his bed?”

“Shut up,” the elf said again, tightly, thinking of Hawke. 

“He is a kinder master than I, I’d imagine. But a poor one just the same. Look at you. Living in filth like a stray dog. Full of confusion. Full of anger. Leaving you here alone, unwanted, without direction.”

Seething, Fenris could not keep his brands from flaring to life, burning at their fullest strength, so that he could light the entire room with rage. “Face me without your barrier, if you think I am so pitiful. I will show you how well I have fared on my own.”

Another man would blanch at the spectacle of the lyrium warrior in his full power, but the magister looked unimpressed. He shrugged at the threat, and lifted his hands. “If you like, I will release the barrier. Perhaps then we could speak face to face.” A blue shimmer showed itself and then blinked out of existence, like a soap bubble popping, and from the surge in his lyrium veins Fenris knew that the barrier had dissolved. "Come now, little wolf, there is no need to hide from me."

Fenris rose and stepped away from his cover, clutching his sword with both hands. His lyrium continued to flare threateningly, but he held himself back, watching for a trap. He had a clear view of Danarius now, standing straight and tall in his grey robes. His face looked exactly as he remembered it, and yet... there were lines now, where his skin had been smooth before, and parts of his hair were trending towards white. The magister was growing _old_.

But that smile, the death-mask grin of sharp white teeth behind clammy yellow skin persisted, and it chilled him to the bone. Fenris remembered this smile too well. It was a dangerous smile.

“Ah, that’s better,” the human pronounced encouragingly. “I prefer to see the eyes of who I’m speaking to, and I have missed those pretty green eyes... We used to talk often, you and I. Do you remember?”

Fenris circled to one side uneasily, his sword at the ready. “You talked. I was made to listen.”

“You listened well. You _learned_. Faster than any slave I have ever known - you were clever, persistent.... flexible. You could learn combat techniques, languages, history, etiquette. You were a rare thing, my pet, until you ran away.”

“I’m not a _thing_ , nor your pet.” _Stop talking to him!_   the elf told himself. _This is exactly what he wants..._

Danarius continued as though he had not heard him. “A dog without training lives in constant stress, uncertain who its pack leader is, what it is supposed to be doing. It is unkind to leave an animal in such a state. With proper guidance, they can learn their place, and be happy again.”

He _could not stop_  his reply. “And am I a dog, then?”

“A very expensive one. And I have come to collect you.”

He could not understand why the magister did not attack. Danarius had a wide array of offensive magics, and he knew them well. Why did he hold back? If he was waiting for Fenris to lower his guard, he would not live to use them. But what else could he be waiting for? “That will not happen, magister. You will not leave this room alive.”

The magister lifted his empty hands in a gesture of supplication. “Here I am. Kill me then. You should be able to strike me easily enough. Why do you hesitate?”

He doesn’t know. Fenris longs to run him through and yet he fears what will happen. This is too easy, something is wrong. Why does he not attack?

Danarius seems completely unconcerned that Fenris will strike. “You will not harm me. You cannot do it, and you know it, don’t you? You will return to Minrathous at my side, and know that it is where you belong. Your current master no longer wants you. He has released you into my care.”

Fenris rolled back on his heels, frustrated. “You speak nonsense! I belong to no one!”

“You belong to Prince Vael. And now he has tired of you.”

 _Sebastian._  His heart is beating very fast now, stammering in panic. _Not Hawke. Sebastian._ Something is very wrong.

“Prince Vael wants only to help me kill you.”

“Mmm-hmm. And he delivered you directly to me, did he not?”

Fenris flinches.

“Did you know, we were just chatting together downstairs earlier this evening. Did he mention what we spoke of, before he came to fetch you? We go a long way back, the young prince and I. The Vael family considered me a friend before their untimely deaths. I dined in their home, and they kept me a bed. When he was a boy, young Sebastian called me uncle. I showed him magic tricks. He used to beg me to, he and his brothers. And his father was my patron, a source of money and influence as I rose to power.”

“This is not true,” Fenris sputters. “I remember nothing of the Vael family in your household.”

For the first time, Danarius looks irritated at the presumptuousness of his pet. “As though you would know it? Did I keep you so far in my confidence? Did you read the letters passed between his father and I? You would not recognize the name if I held it before your face now.” He does not allow the elf to protest that he has in fact learned to read, or at least the beginnings of it, and plunges on: “But I’m sure Prince Vael explained all of this when he brought you here, if you are not his subordinate... or perhaps he mentioned it long ago, when first you told him the name Danarius; a name he knows well.”

Fenris blinks furiously. Sebastian told him nothing of this. But it is a lie; it _must_ be a lie. Danarius is trying to trick him. Sebastian is his friend, and he would not have kept such things from him.

“He didn’t, did he? And why should a prince explain himself to a common slave? He wouldn’t even bring you along to meet his supporters tonight, where you might shame him. And where you might have discovered me among them.”

The elf shakes his head furiously, the blood pounding in his ears. _No. No. These are lies._ But he had wondered many times, in fact, why the Prince would want to spend time in his company. He had never found a convincing answer. What if Danarius was right? It would explain so much...

“Poor little wolf. Did you believe you were friends? Companions? _Equals_? Why, he is the rightful ruler of Starkhaven! You imagine yourself on that level?” He was laughing again, pointedly. “So foolish. You think yourself so interesting, that a Prince would pass the time with you merely for the fun of it. Your conversation so stimulating. Your... manners, such as they are, so refined. Such a high opinion of yourself you have gotten.”

It was all so plausible. So much more likely than what he wanted to believe to be true, that Sebastian was his _friend_ , that he had supported him out of nothing more than the goodness of his heart.

“Enlighten me then,” Fenris said weakly. “What does he want with me?”

“You were confused, little wolf. The pity of a nobleman for a masterless slave, you mistook for real feeling, perhaps respect. People like he and I, we respect people like ourselves. In you Prince Vael had only the same interest as anyone would - you are useful, and pretty to look at, and would give yourself to the first viable nobleman who comes along.”

“I did not..” he began to say, but it wasn’t quite true, was it? He had given himself to Hawke, after all, hadn’t he?

“Prince Vael no longer has a place for you. Nor should I, after you have spurned my hospitality, but I have decided to take you in-” Danarius stopped, seeing the stubborn resistence in the elf’s face, and he recovered his kindly expression. “I did not want to show you this, but perhaps you need to see it. Prince Vael wrote me a letter during his confinement, asking me to take you off his hands. He promised to deliver you to me, if I traveled to Kirkwall.”

The magister’s gnarled hands disappear into his cloak, and emerge with a document, what appears to be a letter. He holds it out to Fenris, and he can see the seal of Starkhaven, broken but clearly visible, emblazoned upon it.

He holds it out to Fenris until it falls from his fingers and flutters to the floor, landing with the seal gleaming up at them in the dim light.

Fenris looked at the letter on the floor, a tattered piece of parchment much-folded and carried. It was not something he could have manufactured on the spot, and it bore the genuine seal of Starkhaven. Sebastian had such a seal - he had seen it himself, in his cell at the Chantry. He stared at the seal until it grew blurry and indistinct. _This cannot be happening. This is not real._

“Go on, read it.” He gestured to the letter, encouraging him to pick it up. “Read how he has tired of your incompetence. Even your unique charms go only so far. He was nearly assassinated right under your nose!”

 _And I rejected him_ , Fenris’s mind raced on. I _turned down his advances and he had no further use for me, and now he has given me to my enemy_. His vision was darkening, turning rapidly black with despair.

“But it was not your fault,” Danarius reassured, kindly again. “You have been poorly maintained. He has no idea how to care for a delicate personality. Let you run wild and unsupervised, and let your training go completely to pot. You are half the fighter you once were, when you were mine. I will return you to glory. With me, you will have discipline and guidance. No more of this doubt and confusion. You will know who you are and what you are for, and it will be the purest pleasure you have ever known.”

“In payment for locating you, and for his tolerance,” he continued, “I have offered him soldiers and my own aid in his campaign to retake Starkhaven. So you see it works out perfectly for everyone.” Danarius walked toward him now, wielding no magic. He reached out a hand to take Fenris’s sword. “Just come along now. When we get back to Minrathous you will remember how good it is to belong to me.”

 _Good_ , Fenris thought hollowly. Yes, he had believed it good, once. The memories that now filled him with dull horror had once brought him satisfaction, if not pleasure. And what had freedom ever brought him but fear, anxiety, and uncertainty? If there had been any pleasures in this time on his own they had been only fleeting, and quickly erased by pain and doubt. Perhaps it was all he deserved, after all. It had never felt quite right, freedom. And wasn’t this what he had been made for, to serve?

Danarius’s hand reached for his sword.

Even in that pit of black despair, there was still one nagging thought. That he could be betrayed, he could believe. That he had only ever been a toy for all of their amusement, he could accept. That made much of what had happened to him in the past seven years make sense. Even that Sebastian could have tired of him, that he was in no way worthy of his companionship, was entirely possible. He had never really believed otherwise.

But he could not reconcile this devious Sebastian with the Prince he had known. The Sebastian who had said on more than one occasion that to lie was a sin against the Maker. That someone would use him and deceive him was credible, but would **Sebastian**?

It seemed more outrageous that their friendship could be genuine, but Sebastian had assured him so many times, and lying was a sin. Fenris did not have faith in many things, but his faith in this was absolute.

“Let him tell me so, then,” he said finally, seeming to shake himself awake, and stepped back from the Magister.

“Eh?” Danarius seemed surprised.

“If Prince Vael has done as you say, let him confess it to my face. He is right outside. Let him come and tell me himself,” he said firmly.

The magister held very still for a moment, as if uncertain. Then he shook his head. “I suppose you were not ready for the truth.” Danarius raised his voice suddenly, calling out loudly enough for anyone nearby to hear. “Prince Vael! Join us!”

For a moment nothing happened, and Fenris began to hope. Perhaps he would not come. Fenris had told him to remain outside no matter what occurred, and the Prince had promised him. If he did not come it would mean all hope was not lost.

But the door opened, and Sebastian appeared.

He stepped into the room with a scowl on his face, and ran a hand through his brown hair impatiently. “Are you not finished yet? I have business to attend to.” He walked not to Fenris’s side, but to the side of the magister, with an imperious air to his posture that Fenris had never noted before.

“We have a small hitch,” Danarius told him, leaning in closely, with a measure of embarrassment. “Our Fenris is having trouble believing me when I speak of our arrangement. If you wouldn’t mind explaining...”

Fenris found it difficult to speak, his mouth suddenly gone dry. “Sebastian?” He could not keep the desperation from his voice. Even to his own ears he sounded pathetic.

“Oh for goodness sake,” Sebastian said with some annoyance. “I’m finished with you, all right? He’s going to take you home to Tevinter. You’ll be better off there, you truly will. And I can use his men to take Starkhaven back, and we can be allies again. You see, it works out for everyone! With the Maker's blessing, everything comes out right in the end.”

Fenris did not see the faint tinge of blood magic in the Prince’s eyes. The casual dismissal had hit him like a stab to the throat, and his vision had gone entirely black. His right hand opened, and his sword slipped from his grasp and clattered heavily to the floor.


End file.
